Are they really that oblivious?

Commonwealth

Commonwealth

Active member
I mean, really AIG?

Some of you have probably been following it, but AIG is under fire for awarding seven figure bonuses to executives WHILE being kept afloat by $170 billion of bailout money.

My question stands: Are they really that oblivious to the economic situation, or, better yet, do they feel that they are DESERVING of the bonuses?

Here's some facts:

- 73 employees received bonuses of over $1 million each.

- The largest bonus paid was $6.4 million.

- 7 people received bonuses of $4 million each.

After receiving the bonuses, 11 employees left the company. A parting gift, perhaps?

I think it's fucking bullshit, and those people should be forced to return every penny. If not, I hope that Congress goes through with its plan to tax the fuck out of the bonuses.

I'm interested in hearing what some of my fellow NS'ers say. Is anyone in favor of it?

skiminnesota, your input is very welcome here.

 
It does suck, but at the same time Congress needs to sack up and say "It's our money, give it back or pay the consequences".

Which won't happen.
 
i think AIG needs a good house cleaning. these fucking people should be fired. I realize that 165 mil isn't a whole lot of money in the big scheme of things, but this is just absurd.
 
probably wont get returned, yes homo, yes standard operating procedure for many many moons.
can you tell im disillusioned? whatever, i always liked subsistence farming. i think im moving to the middle of nowhere NH to hunt and live off the land, and be the 18th century trapper i always wanted to be in elementary school.
 
it wont get returned and congress better not pass some bullshit law like that. If our country was dumb enough to give these companies bailouts then they have ever right to do what they want with it.

if you were in their shoes and the government gave you billions of dollars to pay off your debt and fix your company would you do it? or would you take the money (that we so stupidly gave them) and run like they did? most people will run.

People thought Enron was a bad scandal, wait until this AIG unfolds all the way. this is going to be a huge, huge event, way bigger than anything else in history.

if you ask me, they should not be taxed, they should be tried and thrown in jail; just like Madoff.
 
I agree with your post in principle, but I don't think its that black & white.

I don't agree this statement: "If our country was dumb enough to give these companies bailouts then they have ever right to do what they want with it."

I certainly didn't feel it was right to give the bailout, but the Bush Administration did. Therefore, they should get the blame.

I also don't think that they are necessarily "running" with the money. Are the 11 that left? For sure. But the other 62 obviously feel that they deserve the bonuses, which is fucked up.

However, I do agree that this AIG thing will be as big if not bigger than the Enron scandal.
 
my god, can we just get past the bush administration? (to a certain point)

hell Obama fucking voted for it while he was in the senate, and now is basically doubling down on what Bush did.

i fear for what the world will look like with Obama accruing all of this debt...(and all the senators and congressmen who voted for it)

but like Rhambo Imanual said, you cant just let a good crisis go to waste!
 
if you blame bush than you have to blame Obama as well.

to think that one bailout was any better or worse than the other one is stupid and if you believe that than it proves your ignorance.

and Obama used just as much fear mongering as bush did.

If AIG is tied to these bonuses through their contracts as they claimed they did in march of 08 then its legal to pay out the bonuses. however, this is America, somebody will find a loophole somewhere right? haha

 
The sad part is, I just assumed our Congress would be smart enough to put a clause in there saying they couldn't use the bailout money for bonuses.

I'm going to be completely honest, I trusted the government to not be retarded. I knew Obama was talking about capping salaries of executives and I just thought that Congress would know that if they didn't say AIG couldn't, then they would pay out ridiculous sums called "bonuses".

With that said, I hope that AIG doesn't give back a dime. If we start creating new laws or just breaking the old ones to make the country happy, that is sick. Our House and Senate, with people we elected in them, FUCKED UP, they should take all the blame and maybe cut some of their spending to make up for the difference.

And didn't this already happen? I could swear that when we bailed out the airline industry, an absurd amount went straight to the pockets of the executives.

Everything about this is disgusting, and I'm getting to the point of washing my hands of this whole ordeal and just moving out of the country when I finish college.
 
hah, crap like this happens all the time. Life isn't fair, it sucks, and they don't deserve the bonuses. Nothing you can do about it. You just have to give up on getting mad about this stuff, it doesn't matter, because there will always be greedy, imoral, and corrupt corporations. No one will remember this in 3 weeks anyways because there will be a new headline that everyone can be mad about.
 
i know how pissed you are right now, the whole country is pissed.

you can do what you want but America is a great place to live. you can go live anywhere you want but this country always rebounds from its faults.

most countries are fucked up too btw

hang in there pal!
 
I wrote essentially the same thing but I accidentally pressed the back button.

In the end: the government is a big fuck up, they shit their pants over a tiny ass amount (in the scheme of things) to cover their backs, they knew about it for a while, it's just garbage. Obama is garbage. Bush was garbage. many of the senate/house/obama admin leaders are on a whole new shithead level.
 
are you really that oblivious to think that the people in charge didnt know this was going to happen and do it on purpose? they wanted this to happen dude.
 
Call me an optimist, but I'm gonna say that this is falso.

Did they know about it? Perhaps, I don't know enough about the subject. But did they want it to happen? No, that is ridiculous.
 
just in case you didn't know or don't care to acknowledge it, mccain would be bailing out these companies as well. or did you forget who the party of big business was? I'm not saying he'd be doing exactly the same thing, but something close. and his opposition to it was purely based on the republican commitment to fight obama at every turn. if you don't believe that's mccain's reason, then you are pretty naive, and should watch the clips of his stance on abortion in 2004 and his changed stance in 2007.
 
while it is certainly not the only solution and would be far from a complete solution. tax cuts have a track record of stimulating the economy.

the problem is while congress is giving people back THEIR own money they do not cut spending on their own end.

you should look into what happened when Bush cut the cap gains tax rate... its startling to say the least.
 
call me crazy but that is one of the reasons i believe McCain lost. he offered a light version of democrat policy's.

i have also said as much in another thread. McCain would have done very little different than Obama.

in some ways i am happy McCain lost. it sets up the republicans nicely for 2012. if they can get their act together. by being the party that very clearly articulates the differences between where we are now and where we could potentially be in 4 years vs the path they want to go down.. politically its going to be very very interesting.
 
of course they knew about it, thats not the argument. you do not run a multi- billion dollar corporation and not see a problem of this magnitude coming.

and i agree with you, nobody willingly wants to hurt their company (idk maybe some people do) but the better the company does the more justifiable it is to pay the CEO's millions and millions more. its just right now they are still paying (maybe obligated) to pay their employees the salaries, bonuses... that they normally pay out. its just the public is watching them now in a time of economic uncertainty.

The question is what will the democratic party do about it, or the republicans for that matter.

we will see tomorrow wont we because the CEO goes in front of Congress i believe.
 
ive seen some reports saying that these "bonuses" are built into the employee's contracts...

i dont know, honestly we have bigger fish to fry. IMO.
 
This country got WAY too used to living great lives where we could spend money whenever we wanted. The people that took out these loans they couldn't afford are getting bailed out, while my parents who put lots of money into our mortgage and paid things off asap, are being forced to pay the price for all the other dumbshits, they get nothing in reward for not ruining the economy. This is a REALLY stupid thing. If they can hand out that extra money, then they obviously don't need a bonus.
 
corporations run this country. theyre the ones in charge. they can get away with whatever they want, thats why this is happening. the people in charge of these banks/corporations that are going bust are still making millions from this bailout.
 
i agree. the past six months everyone had their heads up their asses with which political party they were following for the most recent round of elections. and we failed to see the big picture that politicians from both sides of the aisle fucked up.

we voted them into power, allowed them to fuck up, then revoted them back into power, and allowed them to fuck things up more.

theres just not enough accountability on elected officials signing away billions of dollars for my liking.
 
unfortunately we'll keep voting these guys in because theres nobody else to vote for... the entire system is fucked up, and its going to keep getting worse until people stand up and realize whats going on.
 
this comment is exactly why the American public is feed up with these bailouts. its people like your parents, my parents, or even myself included that pay off all my bills, interest, utilities, mortgages all on time and we are the ones getting shafted. it sucks but for the past, idk maybe 40 years ish this country has leaned to rewarding bad behavior.
 
i watched a good portion of the hearing. i caught the last 20 minutes or so of the pre-hearing and probably the first 1 hour, hour and a half of the actual hearing. idk when it actually ended but it was interesting non the less to hear what Edward Liddy had to say.

some of the facts that i found interesting is that Liddy (the CEO of AIG) came out of retirement to try to fix AIG in september I believe it was?

the contracts were written in March of 08 (?) and by Liddy's predecessors but felt he was obligated to pay out the bonuses to each top earning employee as each employee contract was different.

when the contracts were discussed and written last year that the company had already had realized losses on their books! meaning that the company leaders already knew they were losing money back then and still wrote the contracts! thats what pissed me off even more.

Most of the people that caused this mess do not work at AIG anymore, at least the ones in that sector of AIG. The ones that have received the money have been asked to return at least half of the money as some already have or have wanted to return all of it.

Also, Liddy was asked, "had not the government bailed out AIG would these employees still be given the bonuses?" and he said no. meaning that, they used the taxpayers money to pay bonuses.

thats just some of the key things that i picked up while i watched some of it.

correct me if i missed so info or stated it wrong, this was all from memory. haha

 
yeah and his argument against that was that the company would have been in bankruptcy anyways if they had not bee bailed out. that still does not give him the right (IMO) to give out the bonuses on our accout
 
I wish we could stop sending money to ALL the companies that fuck up. Let them burn, others will replace them. We should stop holding the hands of all the failures of the nation. Good work earns money, bad work shouldn't be given it.
 
i just heard that AIG is just finishing up on huge ski lodge expansion at Stowe (i think). they have owned this property since the 40s i guess. saw some pictures of the resort and it looks pretty top-of-the-line. i wonder if they will be selling it to raise cash? hmmm..... probably not.

another key fact:

13 of the largest corporations that received the bailout money have more than 200 million dollars in unpaid taxes. thats right, so now, the government is taking our tax dollars to give to somebody that has not paid theirs! makes total sense right.
 


Who is really oblivious here?

Uh, that would be President Obama and every Democrat who voted for the Obama "screw-u-lus" package. It was in there the whole time.



But

Frank, Hodes, and 244 other congressmen — all Democrats — voted last

month for a stimulus package that explicitly allows TARP funds to be

used for such bonuses. To be precise, President Obama’s $789 billion

stimulus package contained the following provision, which deals

specifically with executive compensation at AIG and other companies

that receive TARP money:







The

prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to

prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written

employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such

valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the

designee of the Secretary.







Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) read this statutory language to the subcommittee twice during the hearing’s

early-afternoon session, just in case anyone was unaware. The executive

compensation loophole was not merely a holdover from President Bush’s

original bailout plan. It was laid out in clear statutory language that

was enacted and signed by Democrats over vigorous Republican opposition. The provision was inserted in conference committee by Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), one of the biggest beneficiaries of political contributions from AIG employees.



President Obama's

"screw-u-lus" had the AIG bonuses in it, not to mention big bonuses for

execs at Citigroup, Bank of America and the other major financial

institutions who use bonuses as part of their pay structure and took

TARP money. Chris Dodd himself wrote this amendment, and Democrats who

control Congress protected this bonus structure.

And now, Barney and Friends

are "outraged." Too bad they weren't outraged enough to vote against

this amendment when it mattered.

excerpted fromhttp://www.michaelgraham.com/

 
Did you forget that Obama's cabinet is full of tax cheats? They probably have no stake in this bailout, just like the other 50% of Americans who do not pay taxes. These people are crying for increased spending because they DONT PAY TAXES and therefore don't have to worry about how much it will cost.
 
the wall street journal breaks down campaign contributions from AIG to current members of our federal government.

mike dodd has received $280 million from them in the past 20 years. george w bush has received $200 million from them, so its not a one-sided battle completely. however both dodd and obama received over $100,000 in 2008 from AIG employees and pacs......john mccain gets the bronze medal with $60,000 for being mister anti-pork.

now which employees donate to politicians? i know that employees like me on the bottom of the food chain don't have $1000s to send to a politician. so i would guess better off employees with bigger paychecks......like executives. i hope someone digs up the list of exactly whom at AIG donated to mike dodd.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742426774379307.html
 
haha, yeah, i couldn't of said it any better

I heard either yesterday or the day before that theses bonuses were in the stimulus package not to be messed with. Barry Frank is probably the biggest two-faced liar out there right now. does anybody actually believe what comes out of that guys mouth?

also, your comment on the taxes on your next quote down:

the people that are outraged are the ones not paying taxes in at all (or hardly). yes, granted there are good tax-paying, honest, hard working Americans that abide by the law and pay there fair of taxes and we should have the right to be outraged.

The American public is just outraged because AIG was the first to pay out the bonuses thus far (correct me if im wrong) so granted they are the first to get punished.

what about other news like Madoff? did people forget about him? i think they are going to give his accountant 105 years if convicted.
 
Barney Frank is an absolute moron in every sense of the word. I am ashamed that he represents my home state.
 
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