"The Wall Street in general and especially the big banks should be very mindful of the fact that they have received government help last fall and should all be humbled by it," a leading U.S. expert on corporate performance and cost management systems has said in a recent panel discussion in Harvard Business School.

The U.S. government, following the collapse of Lehmann Brothers in September 2008, has pumped a massive bailout package that could potentially allocate up to 23.7 trillion dollars, a sum equal to 1.7 times U.S. gross domestic product, into the financial system.

"This was an extraordinary assistance that the financial sector got," exclaimed Robert Kaplan, one of the top 25 business thinkers named by the Financial Times in 2005.

Kaplan is a co-developer of both Activity-Based Costing and the Balanced Scorecard, which are used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. Elected to the Accounting Hall of Fame in 2006, he received the lifetime Contribution Award from the American Accounting Association in the same year.

He researches and consults globally on linking cost and performance management systems to strategy implementation and operational excellence. He is the Baker Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School.

In Kaplan's view, "these firms should be mindful of [the great financial assistance] and be aware that whatever they do, they need to always keep in mind whether it is furthering the greater good for the society."

One year after the eruption of this financial crisis, which has wiped out approximately 40 percent of the world's wealth, a number of major banks, much to the public's surprise, are posting record profits.

Asked what was going on behind the scenes of these banks, Kaplan gave three factors that were making a big difference amongst the financials generally.

Firstly, this is a golden era for people who lend money and put money out because they are borrowing at low cost. These big banks are borrowing, in some cases with FDIC guarantees, at very low rates of less than 1 percent. "So upwardly sloping yield curve definitely exists," Kaplan explained.

Secondly, these firms make a lot of money servicing clients because there are fewer players. The business has been "unusually lucrative during this period."

Lastly, "the capital has been so scarce," because of the draining of capital seen in many other players in the market. These big banks are "well-equipped to take advantage of market dislocations."

However, what even more to the dismay of the public is that these banks, while posting huge increase in profits, are also setting aside explosive salaries and bonuses to their employees.

The three biggest banks, namely Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase &Co., will pay 29.7 billion dollars in combined bonuses, which is even higher than the pre-financial crisis high of 26.8 billion dollars in 2007. The financiers at Goldman Sachs got a populist drubbing after analysts predicted average bonuses of 700,000 dollars an employee at the firm this year.

Kaplan said the public has "translated it into the anger." He thinks that especially with the unemployment rate of 10.2 percent now, the public is "watching these big banks more carefully than ever."

"The public wants to see the kind of humility and acknowledgment of the benefit that these big banks received from the government and tax payers," Kaplan added. "It should be a factor in thinking through not just compensation, but all their everyday activities."

"They should really stretch the focus on the real problems. This will not take away the anger [from the public], but will improve the situation over the longer term," Kaplan stressed.