$503 million. That’s how much of your $85 billion bail-out will be going to ‘never met a swank off site team building meeting I didn’t like’ AIG executives in deferred compensation. And by the way they were caught at it again last week. Could these clowns be any more shameless?
I don’t know about you, but all that’s trickling down for me in this frickin’ economy are my tears as I watch my pension dissolve. But my taxes can go to bonuses for these malfeasant dicks?
The excuse – we need to pay them their bonuses so they don’t go get jobs somewhere else.
Jobs somewhere else? Earth to fat cats — Citi is axing another 10,000. Jobless claims last month at a seven year high. So polish up your resumes. Lotsa action out here.
And if there were an actual job interview: “You completely blew up the country’s biggest insurance company, and therefore I should hire you to run our financial organization, why?”
No you don’t get your bonus! You’re lucky you don’t get fired. Don’t like that? Then have fun with that job search bozo.
on Nov 14th, 2008 at 11:35 am
But hey, at this rate, I’m not going to make enough money to pay taxes. But that’s good for the economy…right?
on Nov 14th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
The one thing about all this that surprises me is how surprised a lot of other people are.
Filed under the heading “Laugh so as not to weep” we find the members of Congress who are outraged! stunned! to discover that corporations being handed free money with virtually no oversight or performance requirements are not being selflessly altruistic and civic-minded with the cash.
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
WARNING: the following is in no way an attempt to justify the paying of bonuses to the employees of Wall Street firms, nor should it be interpreted as any kind of approval of such. This is simply an attempt to provide a bit more context, if for no other reason than to provide you with the ability to focus your outrage at the real offenders.
It has been the common practice at all Wall Street firms to pay “comparatively” low salaries to all of their employees. A large percentage of compensation, and for some the overwhelming majority of it, is paid out as a performance bonus. This includes pretty much everyone, from CEO to trader to admin staff. Although the payment of salary is by no means the same thing as the payment of a bonus, nor does anyone accepting a job at one of these firms do so without complete understanding of the terms of their compensation, there are many people (good, hard-working, non-greedy people) who have absolutely no control over the performance or policies or strategies of the company who depend on the annual bonus as a part of their comp plan. Such people are taking a significant and undeserved hit if bonuses are not paid out at all.
With that said, MOST of the employees of these firms are earning more than 95% of Americans, and should be excluded from the bonus pool - and the point that paying these bonuses to retain good people is utter crap, for exactly the reason Curmudgeon Boy states: where the f%$k do they think they could go? So, should execs from any of these companies get ANY kind of deferred compensation? No, except for any that the company is legally bound to pay. Any discretionary or performance based comp should be denied. However, for those small fish at the bottom of the food chain, some consideration should be given to making them whole regarding their annual comp; it would be a small amount and would be keeping with the spirit of the bailout (i.e., ultimately helping those who got screwed by corporate greed).
It is a hallmark of our democracy that we can’t retroactively prosecute someone for a law that wasn’t on the books at the time of the infraction. Greed and stupidity, while unattractive in anyone, especially those handling billions of our retirement dollars and mortgages, are not illegal in and of themselves. Similarly, forcing anyone to breech a contract, even if the reason for the breech is morally correct, is also illegal. Frustrating but illegal. So, let’s put tremendous pressure on these bastards to do the right thing in discretionary situations, legislate the crap out of the industry so that this kind of greed and stupidity can be prevented and prosecuted, and avoid overly penalizing the victims of this crisis on both sides of Wall Street’s wall.
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
PS - my post has a time stamp of 3:11PM, while the clock on my computer said 2:11PM. This PROVES that the Core4 is either not yet on EST or is in fact set for Atlantic Standard Time (or Newfoundland Standard Time, or Iceland + 3, or some such). So, for you wise guys who claimed I was up at 2:57AM on 11/14, I am vindicated: it was 10:57PM on 11/13 in Vegas, and I have the ticket stub from Cirque du Soleil to prove I was there! HA!
Raven, my ass ….
on Jul 1st, 2009 at 2:55 am
{Is it possible Obama just might be paying off a debt