AIG Execs Who Ruined Company To Get $165 Million In Bonuses

AIG Execs Who Ruined Company To Get $165 Million In Bonuses

www.huffingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON — American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars.

AIG is paying out the executive bonuses to meet a Sunday deadline, but the troubled insurance giant has agreed to administration requests to restrain future payments.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Just about say's it all, the only ones will benefit from this huge bailouts will be the greedy who created the problems in the first place and those in power who no doubt will get cushy jobs from these companies once they leave power, whilst the rest of us spend the next several decades paying of the tab that our governments have run up.

www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Part of the reason given was that not giving the bonuses would be a breach of contract. Funny, my policy always was that if an employee caused way too much in losses, they violated a contract of continuing to be employed. Their paperwork was usually filled out in triplicate and they received the pink copy.

It's only fair they should receive these bonuses. After all, these experts in the field of high finance and trade have their lifestyles to maintain. Should they not receive their bonuses they might even quit to seek work elsewhere, leaving AIG without the needed expertise.

Alternatively, maybe they should have every penny seized and be put to work cleaning toilets for $4 / hour. They'd fit right in with all the other turds.

I say it's bout time we bring back the tar an feather method of dealing with these A--holes. Seriously, their money should be taken, their homes sold at auction, and they should be run outta town

Originally posted by solidshot
whilst the rest of us spend the next several decades paying of the tab that our governments have run up.

There is no paying this back. This is like having a credit card defrauder max out your credit card, and leaving you to pay the bill. We just have a much larger credit line to max out. Once the credit is gone, they will cut and run into hiding, and we will be left with the mess.

There is no paying this kind of debt back. Its like a part time worker finding out somebody ran his credit card up to 1,000,000 dollars, with 10% interest running on it. The minimum payment might be 10,000 and he might pay that off this year, but eventually, 1% will get too big, and then what?

That is what we are doing. Not even paying off enough to stay ahead of the interest. Hell, we pay them back X, and spend X+Y on our credit.

The Treasury Department determined that the government did not have the legal authority to block the current payments by the company.

Why is the Treasury Department determining this???? Since when did the Treasury Department become the employment contract legal advice of the U.S. government?

This should be investigated.

I'm not here to defend this. I'm a major supporter of the feet-first-wood-chipper approach. However, in the interest of 'denying ignorance' there are a couple of things that need to be pointed out:

First, as has been mentioned, AIG has employment contracts with these people and is obligated to pay the bonuses (contractually). Clearly, these bonuses are not tied to any kind of company performance.

Second, AIG is an enormous company. It's entirely conceivable, and highly likely, that there are divisions within AIG that have been doing well but the overall company was submarined by the poorly conceived products that failed. Perhaps, (we can only hope) the bonuses that ARE paid are tied to divisional performance and not company performance. This scenario is most likely and makes sense.

So, lets not be too quick to judge. It's in all of our best interest that AIG survive and do well again. That's the only scenario in which we get our 'investment' back. IF there are profitable, viable divisions within the larger AIG unbrella then we want them to continue and grow, no?

That said, lets find out precisely who WAS responsible for this cluster-fart and put the SOB's in jail.

Originally posted by jtma508

First, as has been mentioned, AIG has employment contracts with these people and is obligated to pay the bonuses (contractually). Clearly, these bonuses are not tied to any kind of company performance.

The only thing I'd disagree with on it the use of the word "clearly". This is not clear at all. Geithner is just taking the word of the AIG execs on this.

There needs to be an investigation.

Like I said in another thread, only in America we reward failure, corruption and squandering with tax payer money.

Now that banking institutions and certain corporations will always have the tax payer to bend over for them every time they start failing is not reason why they should not be enjoying the fruits and decisions of the morons that we got elected in the White house serving their masters in the Federal Reserve.

And we Americans just keep bending more and more.

[edit on 15-3-2009 by marg6043]

In every company I have worked in that had a bonus scheme, it was based not only on personal performance but on overall company performance. Therefore, even though you might have met or exceeded targets, if the overall company targets were not met then no bonus was paid. This was across the board, from the lowest to the highest levels.

What many at the exec level have these days are contracts that guarantee salaries and bonuses for the duration of their employment contract, often fixed, so that even if they screw up big time they are still entitled to the renumeration package originally negotiated. That way, incompetence, as well as good performance, is profitable.

Needless to say, the rest of the workers do not fare so well.

However, to carry on paying these bonuses, after criminally incompetent business practices has led to the need for multi-Billion $/£ bailouts from public funding, is nothing more than a slap in the face to every hard working person in the country. But whoever said life was fair?
Morals and ethics do not matter to these people driven by greed, and the huge amounts of money their lobbyists pump into the political arena is purely to buy support if they screw up.

Congress should repeal this act and let the financials fail. If it brings down the economy and monitary system, then the fed should be next.

The sadder part is;
should indictments be brought against these short-selling derrivative crazy felons,
OUR tax money will be providing them their high priced defense attorneys as well.

And the saddest part?
Journalists and Congressmen/Senators should be on the list.
Start with cutting off the head -Congressman Frank and continue through the tail of these poisonous rattlers

[edit on 15-3-2009 by imd12c4funn]

Well, let me back-track on my earlier post. As it now turns out, many of those about to receive bonuses ARE, in fact, in the business unit that was responsible for the current economic debacle. So much for 'benefit-of-the-doubt'. Roll out the wood chipper.

The outside speculation now is that the reason AIG needs to keep these bozos (like they'd be able to find another job with AIG on their resume) is that they have created such a complicated mess with these investment instruments that it would take outsiders too long to unravel it. They need the creators to help do it. Or, as one Congressman put it, 'these people built the bomb. They are the only ones that truly no how to defuse it in the most timely manner'. [paraphrased]

So, let them do that... then roll out the wood chipper.

nice to see they are using the bailout money well.. this country is going down hill fast


sports in school: give everyone trophies so they dont feel like losers? guess what, if the team lost, they are losers plain and simple

companies: we cant let them fail, they are too big. oh really? my local circuit city went out of business and now best buy dominates electronics in the area, good job not bailing circuit city out. atleast they had the decency to go out of business and not ask for bailout like the wall street thugs and swindlers. everyone of them is a bernie madoff.

Whoever supported this bailout cannot complain about the bonuses. Why?......Because the Obama administration and Congress put no stipulations on the bailout. They could have easily put in some provisions which would have not allowed this but instead the bailout came with NO stipulations.

The bonuses were mostly for sales performances and the bonuses are in their contract. I guess since the government owns like 80% of AIG the employees who did not receive their contractual bonuses could have sued the government.

This is why the bailout was not a good idea from the beginning. Just give money back to the people and let the companies die who cannot float on their own.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d1b1b3816fd0.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 3/16/2009 by WhatTheory]

As Woody Allen put it : "This is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery
of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham !"