You said it, and said it well! I always thought bonuses were tied to performance, good performance, that is. The absolute brass-plated gall of the AIG execs accepting the bonus money is mind-boggling. They obviously have no sense of propriety at all. Their mothers did a very poor job of raising them.

Amen, brother!

Back in October less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa. The cost of that was $440,000. I thought that was outrageous. Little did we know that was just the tip of the ice berg.

Linda

It is sad and outrageous, but it seems there is a large population of people, who have the mind-set that I've got mine...and to he!! with the other guy. I know it seems simplistic, but what the heck happened to The Golden Rule? It seems like people are more into me,me,me. Then maybe, you, if i have time,or if I feel like it. Sad! Dottie

I used to work for them and keep hearing from people who still work there that the press is only reporting one side of the story.

Wonder what their side of the story is.

Hah! OJ said it - they don't give a shi! They feel entitled to their bonuses. They're not like us....

As for the press not putting out the other side of the story, awwww, maybe AIG is getting the shaft from their PR people. AIG pays millions for good PR, so if they aren't getting any it must be because there isn't any.

I'd like to think the PR people are shafting those poor, long-suffering folks at AIG, but the truth is that it can't be spun in any good way. They're crooks and they know it, but will fight to the death their right to keep their loot.

Joyful, good thing you aren't here with my DH because the two of you would really get going!! DH is awfully mad too.

AIG says they are contractually obligated to pay the bonuses, but if they didn't pay, would those fat cats have the gall to sue? Maybe so. They have no shame and are out of touch with real people.

We have purchased our auto insurance through 21st Century for many, many years. AIG bought them out, I think it was sometime last year. We got notices about how we were now part of AIG, and the bills started coming from AIG, not 21st Century. Then, suddenly, the bills started coming in the name of 21st Century again. I think that AIG has such a bad name now that they decided to stick with the 21st name. DH is fuming, and we may switch insurance carriers after all these years.

The press reports that AIG is 90 percent owned by the US government now. But it seems the 10 percent is running things.

If they can tear up auto workers' contracts and pilots' contracts and contracts of everyone else who has taken a cut or lost a job, they can jolly well tear up those AIG contracts. Sure, they'd sue, but let 'em...let 'em leave the company. They belong in prison, in the cells next to Madoff.

You're probably right Sherrmann.

It was once said that if AIG went under they would be taking a whole lot of big companies with them. Apparently these companies have a lot invested in AIG (or something like that).

Very good point, OJ!

And they wonder why they are in financial trouble!!!????

Start at the top and fire them all. Hire people who know how to manage. The current management is just a bunch of thieves.

Linda

This is why the bonuses were given:

A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.

"We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses  which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers  if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury," he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday.
* *
The company told the Treasury that there were two categories of bonus payments, with the first to be given to senior executives. The administration official said Mr. Geithner had told A.I.G. to revise them to protect taxpayer dollars and tie future payments to performance.

The second group of bonuses covers some 2008 retention payments from contracts entered into before government involvement in A.I.G. Indeed, in his letter to Mr. Geithner, Mr. Liddy wrote that he had shown the details of the $450 million bonus pool to outside lawyers and been told that A.I.G. had no choice but to follow through with the payment schedule.

The administration official said the Treasury Department did its own legal analysis and concluded that those contracts could not be broken.

You help run a major company into the ground.

You have a contract that says that you're entitled to a bonus ... with no reference to superior performance record.

That was done before the U.S. gov't. entered the picture.

Such performance entitles the performers to be tarred and feathered, and ridden out of the company on a rail.

In disgrace!!

No severance.

Sure as hell - NO BONUS!!

So - let 'em sue!

Ain't it great to be so big that you can thumb your nose at society, saying that you're so big that they can't let you fail.

Capitalists say that the market will decide ... but the corporations, while they love competition among their suppliers ... and among their customers ... hate it on their own level.

They will do whatever they need to in order to get rid of it.

Now, we see the market system going to seed - many of the practitioners have become so large that they have become a law unto themselves.

Competition no longer rules - they control the market.

Now they're more or less telling the government to go take a hike.

ole joyful

Bonus my eye! Poor performance usually equals a pink slip. If taxpayers own most of AIG now, why are we not entitled to a list of people who were paid bonuses? We have a right to know where our money went. Did I not hear BHO say he wanted an open and honest government responsible to the people? Where did that go? I hate insurance companies anyway. All they ever wanted was to collect premiums and pay out nothing. We should be calling and emailing the greedy people at AIG, but some poor secretary working for a little more than minimum wage would be the one to get that flack.

Oh, these guys get it alright - They are masters at lining their own pockets at the expense of others. In this case, public outrage is justified, not to mention those who lost their life savings.

All of this is so sad. They all know it is not right. There should "NEVER" be bonuses given out when a company is sinking. I heard last night some of them were getting death threats.. I don't think this is the right thing to do but I sure can understand it. Now I hear Frannie and Freddie are giving them out, too. There just doesn't seem to be an end to all of it. Every day seems to get worse. I definately think and feel we are heading in the wrong direction.. I am beginning to wonder if we will be able to even turn it around..

Susie

Why would one WANT to retain these people? Their 'skills' are obviously lacking or they would not have gotten themselves into this predicament in the first place.

I admire companies like Delta, who when facing bankruptcy, refused pay increases and huge executive bonuses, and I give them my business because of it.

I know it was tough on their employees who have been hanging in there. But I think those are some leaders who are riding through the rough financial patches with the survival of the company and longterm stability for employees in mind.

AIG, all the companies who's CEOs ran them into the ground - they proved their greed and total incompetence. I expected no miracle of change in behavior when receiving my tax dollars. Not from them.

My anger lies with those up on The Hill who drew up the contracts for the acceptance of my tax dollars. Were they, too, so incompetent as to allow for such leeway in the use of the millions handed over?

Are we surrounded by complete idiots or by crooks, or both?

Don't answer that question.

trekaren, more came out today:

Liddy said the payouts were necessary to retain top employees with the specialised knowledge to dispose of $2.7 trillion in complex securities that ended up dragging the company to the brink of collapse last year.
**
Liddy said some employees had already given back their entire bonuses. Others who had received retention bonuses had since left the company.
**
...pressed Liddy to release the names of those who received bonuses, and said he intended to subpoena the information.

Liddy refused, citing concerns for the safety of his employees, and read aloud what he said were examples of violent threats that had been received.

In this instance, Gov't made a huge mistake (i don't believe any bailouts should have been given, but that's not the point now) Gov't should have PLACED ALL KINDS OF RESTRICTIONS...nope, instead the idiots signed this deal almost ALL of them WITHOUT READING the danged thing. Right now, it's a dog and pony show, there is probably nothing they can do, they just want the public to think they are outraged, want the public to think they are doing something. Bunch of crooks everywhere.. all the incumbents should be voted out.

I think it's THE perfect time for us, the silent majority, to speak out to be heard. Sending your thoughts in a short and very polite form ON PAPER is the best way to be heard.

No, they will not change policy because you don't like it. No they won't change behavior because you object. But, when enough people are taking the time to send them their thoughts and the vast majority are saying the same thing, ears do tend to perk up.

President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington D.C.
20500

I used to feel an impotent rage when I became angry or disappointed over something that my government reps were doing up on the Hill or here on the state level.

During this last election, I decided that for me, personally, it's better to speak my thoughts while the decisions are taking place rather than feeling that my vote (after the fact) speaks for itself. Yes, it does, but by then it's too late to change or halt something you strongly disagree with.

I have written once (within the last 24 hours, and guess what the topic was?) and you know what? I feel less a subject and more an employer now. I won't write over every thing that I agree or disagree with but on those issues I very strongly agree or disagree with.

I will never again be a part of the silent majority.

This is an idea that some of you might find effective also.

now fannie may and freddie mack...are they nutz??

If you want to contact the president, use email. He will replay and reply and reply and reply.....I sent an email to him asking him to vote against the Wall Street bailout. That got me on his email list. Now I get an email almost every day. It usually asks for a campaign contribution also.

If I was going to critique the ways others do ANYTHING, I'd make sure I knew the facts before I critiqued. I would not depend on any third party to be the only source of my info.

These guys were in a great position to take a lot for themselves ... which they did.

But hasn't our philosophy been big on claiming, "Everyone for himself"?

These guys showed themselves able to do that, very effectively ...

... didn't they?

Is their sin that of operating differently than the usual way that many of us do things, a difference in kind ... or chiefly a difference in amount?

"Everybody for himself ... and the Devil take the hindmost," Dad used to say, with regard to quite a bit of the ways that we do things.

In our economic system - what responsibility do we owe to others ... and to society as a whole?

Our corporations claim that their responsibility is to their shareholders ... and work it so that the managers get paid well.

Haven't many felt that it was O.K. to be predatory?

When we tell them that they owe some responsibility to society as a whole ... to be "good citizens" ...

... don't some (many?) of them look at us as though we had two heads?

Many of them have felt, for example, that they have little responsibility with regard to not polluting.

ole joyful

A caller on the Phil Valentine show laswt night said he bought shares of AIG a week or so ago when it was around $50 per and now it is over $1.20 He feels he got a good deal.

Many of these people at AIG were hired and promise a bonus for a specific job. They did their job and are entitled to that bonus. They are no longer working at AIG, but because of so many threats to them and their families cannot get work in other places. It is NOT their fault. If your were hired for a one time situation and then found out could not get your bonus and have to take your children out of school, leave the area you too would feel bitter too. We need to look at the whole picture and listen to the other side. How about the oil companies. Mobil Oil made the biggest profit ever and yet the price of gasoline, food, materials and other items are going up. Yes they got their bonus also. We all need to investigate what the real story is, not just what the media and the politicians want us to hear. Look around you and find out why many small and median size businesses are failing. Are they failing because of money, or not knowing how to run the business, charging too much, not enough help, taxes, people stealing items and not being punished, etc We need to stop blaming every one else for our own problems. We must assume responsibility for our own mistakes, and stop expecting the Government to do everything for us.

Don't forget if AIG goes under almost 100% of all insurance companies go broke and you will have NO insurance--medical, car, house.

I just read that AIG insures more airplanes than anyone else in the world. If you plan on flying, be thankful for AIG.

A company that was a strong, productive company was, a few months ago, damn near broke - would have been, but for bailout, we've been told. If not, why did they need any bailout, let alone such a huge one?

Let's not forget the expensive gathering offshore, just after the bailout.

And those who perpetrated the deed, bringing the company to its knees, claim that they deserve a bonus?

If I were responsible for such, I'd expect to be fired.

And now we're told that the bonus is much larger than reported earlier.

Also, that the government leaders knew about the plan some time ago.

I reiterate ... THEY - JUST - DON'T - GET - IT!!!

ole joyful

it all boils down to the fact that the US GOVT made the big mistakes.....time after time after time....big govt wannabe's

I don't believe that if AIG went under (filed for bankruptcy) that we would not have any insurance. They would just be restructurerd and life would go on, maybe under a different company name? This is the U.S., we should not be bailing out companies that can't do business in an intellegent way. That's what this country was founded on-capitalism. Overtaxing the citizens to pay for the mess these companies are making for themselves is just wrong and why the heck did our forefathers fight in the Revolutionary War? That's why the citizens are having tea parties all over the country now. I think a lot of us are just plain fed up with blind stupid spending by our government.

I don't think any company that failed so far has really affected my life in catastrophic ways. My bank sold out to another and I ended up looking for a different bank, found one better, one that gives me free checks and gives me back ATM fees charged by ATMs not associated with my new bank. So, it actually worked out better for me in the end. I get better customer service with a better run company and we both win.

Someone said that we're concentrating on the wrong issue, by getting ourselves into such a tizzy over the bonuses (even if they're bigger than we first heard).

That we should have concentrated on the doughnut - the bailout.

In an economic system that's driven by the market, regulated largely by competition, and some can't hack it ... why should they have the government pick up their marbles for them?

That's one of the problems that we face when we allow some companies to become so huge that they have such a large effect on the market that we can't allow them to fail.

Why should companies be bailed out to the tune of 700 Billion or so (up till now) ...

... with, it appears, very little accountability.

The bonuses are, what - 1/10th of one per cent of the problem?.

Have you heard of a book called "Free Lunch", written by a law prof at Syracuse Univ.?

Ordinary folks are working harder, but have had almost no pay raises for something like 30 years ... but the wealthy sure have had their incomes increased.

Socialism for the rich? Private enterprise for the middle class ... the taxpayers?

Have yourselves a great week, everyone.

ole joyful

ole joyful, If you had followed this AIG mess really closely, you would have read about part 1 of the bonuses in a few papers in December. Now part 2 was paid in March and every media outlet in the world jumped on it.

It's the Connecticut attorney general and the mass media who are only now learning how to add the 2 pieces together.

Maybe we've been concentrating on the hole ... when the real issue has been and is the doughnut.

And a lot of legislators had to have some pork thrown in, in order to win their vote.

Do you figure that, if we had about an 80 - 90 per cent voting turnout, that they'd be more careful to pay attention to us when we talk, in between elections??

Was it Nathan Hale who said, "The price of (freedom?) (democracy?) is eternal vigilance".

To which stricture we've paid scant attention.

Though we claim to value the gift by many of their lives in war to preserve freedom and democracy, it seems to me that when we neglect to vote, we indicate the true level of value that we place on that precious gift.

ole joyful