Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke has succeeded in returning the US economy to growth after the longest contraction in more than six decades. So far Wall Street, not Main Street, has been the primary beneficiary.  Bernanke, who spoke on Monday at an Economic Club of New York luncheon, has helped spark a 62-percent rally in the stock market since March 9 by pledging to keep borrowing costs “exceptionally low” for “an extended period.” His efforts haven’t stopped unemployment from reaching a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October.

Leipzig was the scene of protests that spread to Berlin and toppled communist East Germany in 1989. Since then, it has added jobs faster than any German city, east or west, as governments and companies led by Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Amazon.com Inc. and Deutsche Post AG invested more than $17.8 billion.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank, survivors of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, are set to pay record bonuses this year.  The firms—the three biggest banks to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program—will hand out $29.7 billion in bonuses, according to analysts’ estimates. That’s up 60 percent from last year and more than the previous high of $26.8 billion in 2007. The money, split among 119,000 employees, equals $250,400 each, almost five times the $50,303 median household income in the US last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.