AIG's So Nice, They're Doing It Twice! Yes, It's Another Round of Bonuses
By Susie Madrak Friday Jul 10, 2009 10:00amIt's nice to know that as Americans struggle with unemployment and lack of health insurance, at least one worthy group of lads are doing well!
American International Group is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments four months ago set off a national furor.
The troubled insurance giant has been pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage.
Uh, hon? We don't care if the Pope himself blesses you. We're not going to be happy about this. Nope.
The request puts the administration's new compensation czar on the spot by seeking his opinion about bonuses that were promised long before he took his post.
AIG doesn't actually need the permission of Kenneth R. Feinberg, who President Obama appointed last month to oversee the compensation of top executives at seven firms that have received large federal bailouts. But officials at AIG, whose federal rescue package stands at $180 billion, have been reluctant to move forward without political cover from the government.
"Anytime we write a check to anybody" it is highly scrutinized, said an AIG official, who declined to speak on the record because the negotiations with Feinberg are ongoing. "We would want to feel comfortable that the government is comfortable with what we are doing."
I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling all that comfortable with this.
The payments coming due next week include $2.4 million in bonuses for about 40 high-ranking executives at AIG, according to administration documents from earlier this year. Though the actual sum may have changed since then, the payments are much smaller than those that caused the upheaval in March.
To those of us who are lucky enough that they're still employed, I'll bet they're thinking about that past ten years of one- and two-percent raises, wondering how to get on that magical merry-go-round. Dream on!
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Stop being so mean to very rich people. After all, if they don't exploit us all to maximize shareholder profits and strangle our democracy, who will?
Leave AIG alone!!!!!!
;)
Do not defy God.
I have an idea: Seize their policies and auction them off on the open market then dissolve the company leaving the rats infesting the management to eat shit.
Rich people suck...I'm the most qualified person to run AIG to the ground, so why don't they hire me? I will make them go bankrupt faster than the stupid A-holes that are working there right now.
Hon, why do you think Obama is seeing the pope today?
;)
... hit Timmy Geithner in the head with a sock full of pennies.
Oh, and guess what, conservaturds!?!? AIG is the 'private industry' you claim giving money to will fix everything.
I want my money back today. From all of these people.
!
Lay the rope out in an 's' with extra length at the top. The top of the 's' will wind around the bottom to form the knot; the bottom curve of the 's' becomes the loop of the noose itself.
Wind the rope around the middle and lower parts of the 's', taking care to keep the turns reasonably tight. The loose end is tucked through the opening between the winding and the first curve of the 's,' then cinched tight by pulling on the loop.
gimme an R gimme an E gimme a V gimme an O gimme gimme an L gimme a U gimme a T gimme an I gimme an O gimme an N.
watta ya get?
The last tick of a time bomb.
for a while now
These psycho's will never stop, until somebody stops them.
These fascist SOB's must be stopped.
But if go into the how, I'll get deleted.
Someone has to shut them down. Or let them self destruct.
From NoGWBpolicyleft: "These psycho's will never stop, until somebody stops them."
"Psychos" might just be an accurate description. I remember a news report that came out a few years ago. Someone had done a study which showed that a lot of corporate executives had sociopathic personality traits. (If anyone out there remembers that study and some more details, please jump in.)
Yeah, I think there's something to that study. Ever read business/conservative viewpoint material? It's pretty scary stuff. It has this whole law of the jungle vibe to it - cut-throat competition, anything to get ahead and stay ahead, anything to show how tough you are, avoid showing weakness at all costs, compassion is for wimps and losers. (Compassionate conservatism is when they make the streets safer before they throw you out into them.)
If people going to business school get indoctrinated with this mentality, it sure would explain a lot.
I'm serious - what is the goddamn point anymore? We fight, we argue, we protest and not one goddamn thing changes.
I am at a really low fucking point right now - what is the damn point...
... incorporate yourself as a bank. And ask for some of the funny money.
Use their system... that is what I am thinking about doing.
These help me. So do fantasies of revenge.
... these are the same group of assholes that want to know what you grandma was doing in her 30s before you can apply for a loan or get insured. But don't understand why the government would want oversight on billions of dollars "given" to them.
“The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) originally limited the amount of tax deductible compensation payable to each senior executive of financial institutions participating in the TARP to $500,000 for as long as the US government holds an equity or debt position in the entity,” explains Richard Reilly, a partner at Baker & McKenzie. “The EESA also prohibited new employment contracts that provide for golden parachute payments upon involuntary termination, bankruptcy filing or receivership, and imposed tax deduction limits and tax penalties on certain golden parachute and severance payments,” he adds.
http://www.financierworldwide.com/article.php...
"Secretary Geithner also clarified that the Government will not be not capping pay or setting precise prescriptions for how companies should set compensation"
so, these fuckwads can get their bonuses b/c they are less than 500k? not only shouldn't they get a dime, they should be unemployed and on trial for their part in the theft of billions of dollars.
Little Timmy fuckwad, and Larry the derivatives guy should be on trial with them!
Mr. President, your economic team sucks! Do you think FDR would have hired insider dickheads like this to fix the economy during the first republican great depression?
Didn't that use to be on after Sesame Street?
... that even though these bail outs were passed mostly under the Bush admin. The GOP will squarely blame all this on the Dems, as proof of their anti-capitalist attitude by using public funds to bail out private enterprises that were less than optimal.
For being a group of supposedly such smooth political operators, this Obama admin seems to be constantly the ones left out without a chair every time the music stops....
I am beginnig to think that history will view Obama as a miserable failure.
After eight years of the most RADICAL, reactionary, rightwing fascist government in history, the last thing we need is moderation/centrism.
We are at a crossroads in our history. And for the first time, I get the feeling America is not going to come out of this a better country.
If not, I blame Obama! He had the opportunity, and he let the psycho's in the GOP and DLC who caused this clusterfuck, to continue dragging the rest of us down this path of disaster.
What is going on right now in this administration, is the stuff I expected from a Hillary presidency - which is why I voted for Obama. Then he went out and elected all of the republican-lite Clinton flunkies as his top advisors.
If a REAL democrat (FDR anti-corporate fascist type)runs against Obama in 2012, I think he would have a decent shot! I would support them.
..with the bathwater but I have to agree. Its still only 7 months in but change requires decisions to NOT do things the way they were done.
outside the box. Remember, that due to his family background, he was a corporate shill himself at the beginning. But he was smart enough to realize that positive populism that benefits most people would provide more votes than any other option. Period, that is why he was re-elected until he died.
If Obama was truly the political visionary he was billed to be, he could simply pass universal health care. Any party in the industrialized world which has passed a successful populist health care/economic reform in their respective countries has been rewarded with the loyalty of the majority of the voters (until they screw up obviously). He doesn't even have to fix all the fires left by the Bush admin.
But if he does not do that, he will simply be left as another 1-termer to be made fun of for subsequent decades/generations. See, Carter. Heck, he may be so toxic that another Bush may even have a go in 2012. And the fact that he has done a piss poor job at even trying to pretend to be building a firewall between his admin and the Bush policies/f*ck ups... leads me to believe he is not that bright guy, and that he must have won by default. Because, one has to be very very very dumb to be stuck with the blame for Bush's f*ck ups. And unless he does something real soon about that, I am afraid the GOP is going to successfully pin their f*ck ups on this poor fella.
I am willing to be proven wrong, but so far Obama is simply trying to be everything to everyone. Except for him "everyone" means anyone on the center-right. It is very early in his firs term, but the problem is that I don't see any indication that Obama has got "it" yet. In his battery of proposals, so far, there is not a single one which I could consider slightly creative, or that I could read as an indication that he is trying anything at all outside the box.
The problem, is that I find myself giving him yet another arbitrary dead line to prove me wrong in my estimation of him...
It's part of having character.
with the Merriam Webster's definition of the word "Change."
Even though most economists knew that the first one was too small, and too much of it went to tax cuts. Forget about anything that is going to help average Americans.
Here is Hannity totally manipulating information to fit his agenda. Watch!!!
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2112
but what the fuck are the bonuses actually FOR?
(pardon the grammar)
I mean, in general, I don't have a problem with companies paying bonuses to anyone if:
they are making money for stockholders.
they are paying bonuses and/or giving the employees money for the company doing well.
what the fuck?
..here's my best impression of Donald Trump:
YOU'RE FIRED!
What has AIG done for America lately? Nothing
That's what we owe the executives NOTHING. Its about time someone started working for us instead of against us. Why did we all bother to vote for change? I'm still getting screwed and I can't afford to move into the jungle, dammit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2GsJkmv9l4
that Bernie Madoff ripped off taxpayers for 2.3 trillion dollars. I can't help but wonder if he has innocently mixed up his facts, or, if his source of news has not so innocently given folks the idea that our economic woes are the fault of one man, and not a failed system.
He must be thinking of George Bush and his tax rip-off for the super wealthy.
. . nothing. Everyone else has debt, you never lose that.
The big Boyz? Hey Obama will bail ya out! How much cash ya need!
These jerks should be locked up in Soledad or Rikers, not getting a bonus. People can't find jobs and are losing them left and right, yet some AIG asshole can get at least 16 people's annual wages (if we use $30k as the annual wage) as a fucking bonus? 16 people, per bonus recipient, could be working, not at a great wage but at least having a job, if these jackholes weren't getting their precious bonus. I feel like the AIG executives, hell let's just include Wall Street, are Gollum chasing their precious at all costs.
But didn't you know? Their the best and the brightest!
.
Able to create and implement a quasi-legal ponzi scheme at the taxpayers expense.
FAH!
Gitmo!
PLENTY OF ROOM there.
*High Five*
I too am lucky enough to still be employed. After years of "raises" that did not even keep up with the rising cost of living, we've been told there will be no raises and no bonuses . . indefinitely.
And we haven't screwed anyone over or even gone into the red!
[end of rant - I'll go back to my dog food now]
Thursday, AIG's stock lost nearly 25% of it's already low value, falling below the $10 a share mark.
Reason? Reports that AIG may not be able to repay its gov loan because UK debt is pushing their total asssts down to zero.
Time for bonuses!
This will cause another round of "if you don't bail us out, the economy will FAIL [thunder in background], now gimme".
They come from the same pile of filth as Communist Party commissars.
AIG = Big middle finger to America.
Too Big To Exist. Let them fail.
Well folks , assume your customary positions , bend over , pucker up and smile because nothing has changed and it's likely that nothing will change . Wall street , the lobbyists and big money own DC and the whores we keep re-electing .
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