Bailout make bank bonuses bigger than before.

What happense when you have lawmakers thinking they could outwit Wall Streeters.

Banks cut bonuses last year and shifted more pay into stock and options from cash, a tactic that lawmakers supported for its emphasis on long-term performance. Within months, the financial system began to mend — partly with the help of billions of dollars in government aid — and that stock began surging in value. Some of it can be cashed in starting in just a few months. And so the bonuses Wall Street received last year, billed as paltry at the time, are turning out to be among the most lucrative payouts ever. Goldman Sachs, for instance, sharply cut nearly all bonuses it paid last year but gave some executives more options than usual. The company gave its general counsel, for example, 104,868 stock options and 14,117 shares in December, when the bank’s stock was around $78. Now the bank’s shares have more than doubled in value, making that stock and option award worth nearly $12 million, according to Equilar, an executive compensation research firm in Redwood Shores, Calif. “People have to look at the sizable gains that have been made since stock and options were granted last year, and the fact is this was, in many ways, a windfall,” said Jesse M. Brill, the chairman of CompensationStandards.com, a trade publication. “This had nothing to do with people’s performance. These were granted at market lows.”