AIG Chief Counsel Resigns, Will Collect $2.8 Million in Severance. Poor Baby.
A month ago, I was reading one of those websites where people post their modest wishes and ask readers for help. One man in particular struck me: He'd lost his job, his wife was working to keep the family afloat and his wish was for someone to replace his wife's single ratty bra. He'd scraped together $10 and they bought a new one from Walmart, but it didn't really fit and hurt her to wear it.
He talked about how awful it was, to not even be able to afford this for his wife. I remember reading it and thinking how very little so many people in this country have, and how much we take for granted.
Now, compare and contrast that story with this one:
NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Reuters) - A top executive at American International Group Inc (AIG.N) has resigned because of pay curbs imposed by the Obama Administration's pay czar, the insurer said on Wednesday.
Anastasia Kelly, AIG's vice chairman for legal, human resources, corporate affairs and corporate communications, resigned effective Dec. 30 for "good reason" and is eligible for severance pay under the terms of the company's executive severance plan, the insurer said.
Kelly stands to be paid about $2.8 million in severance, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Kelly's resignation comes after Kenneth Feinberg, who is charged with monitoring pay levels at companies that received taxpayer funds, imposed pay caps for AIG's top executives.
Earlier this month, Feinberg set the compensation structures for the 26th through 100th highest-paid employees at four firms, including AIG, limiting most cash salaries to $500,000.
Feinberg also granted less than a dozen special exemptions from the cash salary cap, including several AIG executives, after being urged to do so by Federal Reserve and Treasury officials.
Kelly met frequently with Feinberg to discuss pay issues as he prepared to rule on compensation at companies that received extraordinary taxpayer bailouts.
She was among five executives reported by The Wall Street Journal to have notified the insurer that they were prepared to resign and collect severance benefits if their pay was cut sharply by Feinberg. Chief Executive Robert Benmosche separately also had considered quitting because of the pay constraints, the Journal has reported.
Cornelius Hurley, director of the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University, said no AIG employee was irreplaceable.
"We have been duped into thinking that these AIG employees have some kind of secret code that no other employee could discover if they were hired to replace them and therefore they are able to basically hold the company ransom," Hurley said.
i think the american people would rather face ruin and a full blown depression rather than enriching these crooks again
btw, doesnt one only get severance when one is terminated or layed off?
whoever heard of getting paid to quit?
I've never heard of severance pay when one quits a job.
Apparently these people are paid just 'to be'...no matter what they do.
On the bottom line...the disconnect that these people enjoy, between reality & their pampered ego-feeding world is simply astonishing!
I don't seem to remember the American people being asked or being overjoyed about bailing these fuck ups out the first time. And we won't be asked when it happens again, and again, and again.
Generally speaking I don't trust anyone making over 150K a year.
Lou Dobbs
She's whining because she is restricted to making more in one year than I will probably make in 25%-33% of my working life? How small a viollin can $2.8M buy?
Not very small. At $2.8M it would have to be gold dipped and diamond encrusted, which requires space to work with.
Corporate America and the 2 parties are like a bunch of spoiled rotten children in adult bodies. Think of all the pacifiers 2 million dollars could buy. They can choke on their money.
retained no matter what the cost then why did they drive the company into bankruptcy???
FAILURE, where do I sign up. Because I couldn't possibly fail more catastrophically than these self-proclaimed geniuses.
Pay me a few million a year, and I'd be happy to screw up your company. Then I'll quit and you can give me that nice severance package.
WTF?!?!
May the crows feed on the innards.
Be as you wish to seem
Well Kelly honey if you just give me $50,000 I'd be thrilled, hell just give me a job. Quitting a job because you "ONLY" get 2.5 MILLION a year is definitely something I don't need. I just don't understand such greed. How much is enough? How much is too much when too much isn't enough? WTF am I missing here?
The love you take is equal to the love you make. John Lennon Paul Mc Cartney
will be more than most make in a lifetime!
Don't let the door catch your golden parachute on your way out!
so says the republicans.
Republicans are liars and simply cannot be trusted.
if you google Anastasia Kelly you get the mainstream thread "she's fighting for her salary"
your name's Lebowski, Lebowski... and your wife is Bunny
What with the job only paying $500,000/year, I sure hope they can find somebody to take it.
I mean really...
Oooh, pick me.
Who the fuck gets severance pay when they quit their job??? Only in U.S.A Inc - a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, Aetna,Exxon, Saudi Arabia, and the State of Israel.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
Oops, wrong poll. Sorry.
I lold.
The British Parliament recently passed a law imposing a tax equal to almost 100% of the amount of any bonus paid to an employee of a bailed-out financial institution.
The US Congress could to the same, if it had balls and a dim understanding of how this recession is affecting ordinary people.
TAX THE BONUSES BACK.
AIG's executives drove their company into the grown and brought about one of the biggest bankruptcies in history - paid off 100 cents on the dollar, at taxpayer expense.
Fuck 'em. Make 'em pay back their bonuses, and every cent of their severance, too.
would buy lots a bras (and jockstraps)!
dandy
I would say to anyone who really wants to make a difference, consider moving policies to companies with more sane compensation policies. All of these companies publicly list top officers' compensation. If you do some research, which will require some work, (Between car, home and life I got 4 companies myself), you can find companies whose executives are paid more reasonably. Make the move, and let both the old and new companies why you did. If enough of us make noise at once, it should be heard.
American Kleptocracy…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
All hiring practices in your company have to be equal. How many bank tellers at the big banks that were bailed out, would get a large percent of their annual salary upon quitting their job? I'm betting NONE.
I have no problem with people making money, but this blatant effort to keep a majority of the money in this country in the hands of so few is EXACTLY what is wrong with unadulterated capitalism. The "free markets will solve everything" crowd needs to explain to me how THIS would be solved naturally in a pure capitalist system because this even goes on at companies that did not receive bailout money. Hell, look at Carly Fiorina when she left Hewlett-Packard!
They just don't get it. I think a working guillotine should be set up across the street from their headquarters.
Now he has time to volunteer at a soup kitchen.
I have to give credit for holding the line on the salary caps in the face of what had to have been absolutely tremendous pressure to give far, far more exemptions than he did. It's possible that Ms. Kelly will indeed find another job paying upwards of $500k annually, but at least it will have to be at a firm that didn't receive eleven figures in taxpayer cash to survive.
In addition, I don't know how much cross-readership there is here with AbovetheLaw, but there are a lot of unemployed high-end attorneys out there at the moment, including some with a great deal of experience (i.e., partner-level players). AIG will be able to find a new general counsel, and if that individual is motivated, he or she will be up to speed on the company's legal affairs in no time flat. Hurley is right; there are no irreplaceable employees.
"one of those websites where people post their modest wishes and ask readers for help"
^Can I have a few examples of such a place? This could be a nice "good deed of the month" project for this year. My husband and I are in our 20s so we don't have a lot ourselves, but this could be within our means.
She is a parasite! We as a society need to stop tolerating this nonsense. Send letters, do not do any business with GS, BofA, AIg etc etc or their subsidiaries. Its called accountability and we need to hold them to some level of it.
Tax then like England. She is part of the problem.
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