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Wall Street is about to learn an overdue lesson in humility.

A year removed from the global economic crisis they created, executives of the financial companies responsible have yet to disassociate themselves of the notion they deserve the obscene sums they pay themselves.

Do they make anything of value?
Do they contribute anything tangible to society?

Do they heal the sick or comfort the afflicted?

The answers, of course, are no, no and no. They simply move money from one place to another and take a cut. Yet even after being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers who will shoulder the bill for years to come, the delusional titans of Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG and their brethren believed they were still deserving of stipends that would make a king blush.

No more.

On Wednesday, a frustrated Obama administration indicated it will cap pay to the chief executives of companies the Treasury rescued last year.

According to the New York Times, details of the plan will be divulged over the next few days, but the seven companies that received the most TARP money will have to learn to live much more modestly. The 25 best-paid executives, the Times said, will be paid up to 90 percent less than last year. In fact, no top executive will receive more than $200,000 in total compensation.

It's about time.

But, as the infomercials say, there's more.

Any executive who wants more than $25,000 in special benefits -- think country clubs, private planes and limousines -- first will have to get government permission.

Obviously, Wall Street failed to understand Americans had had enough.

While the bankers who hatched the financial shenanigans in lower Manhattan continued to pocket paychecks in the tens of millions, ordinary Americans bailing them out were being handed pink slips as a consequence of the economic train wreck.

Yes, the bailout was necessary. Without it, the economy would have buckled. Unfortunately, it came with too little oversight. Even as they took billions in TARP money, executives whined that their substantial payment packages were necessary to keep them in their plush offices. Bewildered Americans asked why, but the Bush administration acquiesced.

Now, a year later, those who thought they were too big to fail are going to have to answer to those who were too small to save.