Financial giants getting injections of federal cash owed their executives more than $40 billion for past years' pay and pensions as of the end of 2007, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. The government is seeking to rein in executive pay at banks getting federal money. But overlooked in these efforts is the total size of debts that financial firms receiving taxpayer assistance previously incurred to their executives, which at some firms exceed what they owe in pensions to their entire work forces. The sums are mostly for special executive pensions and deferred compensation, including bonuses, for prior years. Some examples: $11.8 billion at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., $8.5 billion at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and $10 billion to $12 billion at Morgan Stanley. Few firms report the size of these debts to their executives. In most cases, the Journal calculated them by extrapolating from figures that the firms do have to disclose. Most firms haven't set aside cash or stock for these IOUs. They are a drag on current earnings and when the executives depart, employers have to pay them out of corporate coffers. [Such] liabilities grew especially high in the financial industry, with its tradition of lavish pay. The liabilities are an essentially hidden obligation. Even when the debts to their executives total in the billions, most companies lump them into other liabilities"; only a few then identify amounts attributable to deferred pay.