wall street firms earned more in the first 2 1/2 years of the obama presidency than in all eight years of the bush presidency. over $85 billion in profit compared to $77 billion under president bush. the largest banks increased assets by 10% since beginning of 2009 and reported profits of $34 billion so far this year. wall street salaries have grown by an average of 16.1%. last year financial firms gave out more than $25 billion in bonuses. washington post is reported president obama has collected more money from wall street, $15.6 million than all the republican candidates combined. these numbers come as president obama is attempting to connect with working class americans hardest hit by financial crisis. for the latest washington post abc poll finds 61% of americans disapprove of the way president obama is handling the economy. only 13% of americans say they re better off today than they were before president obama took office.
popandreou has agreed to step down halfway through his four-year term as greece takes the initial steps towards forming a new coalition government and securing bailout funds from the european union. now the focus of the financial crisis there turns to italy where the cost of borrowing has jumped to its highest rate since that country adopted the euro. let s take an early look at the markets. we go to geoff cutmore life in london. george popandreou was increasingly seen as a problem in terms of at least giving greece the next tranche of the imf/eu aid it was meant to get. he put his hand up and said the greek people need a further referendum on further austerity and how we ll get ourselves out of this financial crisis. that didn t go down too well with the eu or imf who were lining up to give the next tranche of aid. george popandreou is gone.
as we told you earlier, the washington post went through the numbers and found wall street has earned more during the first few years of the obama presidency than all eight years of the george w. bush administration. with that surge in profits came a surge in pay. if you want to sound smart today, tell your friends in 2008 total compensation and benefits for publicly-traded wall street banks and security firms hit a record $135 billion. that s in 2010. wall street journal dug that number up adding the gains, up 5.7% from the previous year came as revenues bounced to $417 billion. that is another all-time high. bottom line, wall street is doing just fine three years after the financial crisis. enough of the real news, let s huddle up around the wart cooler to watch fake rick perry on saturday night addressing the loopy speech in new hampshire. we showed it to you a bunch.
we will get a unity government created, but still we don t know who will be in that government or exactly how it will be formed, but it is seen as very much the next piece of the jigsaw puzzle when it comes to moving forward in this crisis. the markets are nervous, though. we are down in the european session and we have been through most of the session as you can see here. in the early call on the u.s. open is quite week. in part that s the biggest story. italy, which is into the market for $2.2 trillion in debt set for a very crucial vote tomorrow, and they ll be nervousness going into that vote as to whether the berlusconi government can survive. back to you. amazing, jeff, we hop from one country to the next every week. this week it s italy. geoff cutmore life in london. profits for american firms are reaching record highs not sen since 2008.