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Why are you against welfare for the rich?
I am wondering, does anyone else have a problem with this? I am so tired of taxes and the daily increases. When I heard about this, I was so angry, my chest hurt and my heart started pumping fast and I wanted to call someone...
Am I wrong to feel this way?
Why are you against welfare for the rich?
I just don't think they should get bonuses or they should be renegotiated..
The Chairman's excuse of contractual obligations is bull .
When you take government bailout money, how is that different than reorganization bankruptcy? All bonuses, raises, etc. are frozen, are they not?
AIG should not be getting any tax money. If anything, the tax money should go to homeowners in foreclosure. If AIG didn't get the bailout money, then they would be bankrupt and these executive would not get their unearned bonuses.
There is nothing in the U.S. Cons ution authoring these bailouts, and on top of that they are bad policy, not in the public's interest. Taxing the middle class, including those in foreclose, and then sending money to millionaires does not help the economy. it only props up crooked people who are financing the campaigns of the very same republicrats who are voting for these bailouts.
lol him
im sure top lvl management personels all have a few 1ooo's shares which they can manipulate how much directors get paid when AGMs are held.
Bonuses for AIG is a great idea. In fact, I think the ceos deserve a week long vacantion to Vegas to boot.
Wow.
I give you your average American voter.
I only wish the tax dollars collected were coming from liberals since they are the ones who keep putting theses asses in office.
Chorus of outrage over millions in AIG bonuses
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/...wh/aig_outrage
"liberals since they are the ones who keep putting theses asses in office."
L I E
AIG Bonuses Scandal: CEOs Take Our Billions and Are Accountable to No One
By Robert B. Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Posted on March 15, 2009, Printed on March 15, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/131721/
The real scandal of AIG isn't just that American taxpayers have so far committed $170 billion to the giant insurer because it is thought to be too big to fail -- the most money ever funneled to a single company by a government since the dawn of capitalism -- nor even that AIG's notoriously failing executives, at the very unit responsible for the catastrophic credit-default swaps at the very center of the debacle, are planning to give themselves over $100 million in bonuses. The scandal is that even at this late date, even in a new administration dedicated to doing it all differently, Americans still have so little say over what is happening with our money.
The administration is said to have been outraged when it heard of the bonus plan last week. Apparently Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner told AIG's chairman, Edward Liddy (who was installed at the insistence of the Treasury, in the first place) that the bonuses should not be paid. But it turns out that most will be paid anyway, because, according to AIG, the firm is legally obligated to pay them. The bonuses are part of employee contracts negotiated before the bailouts. And, in any event, Liddy explained, AIG needs to be able to retain talent.
AIG's arguments are absurd on their face. Had AIG gone into chapter 11 bankruptcy or been liquidated, as it would have without government aid, no bonuses would ever be paid (they would have had a lower priority under bankruptcy law that AIG's debts to other creditors); indeed, AIG's executives would have long ago been on the street. And any mention of the word "talent" in the same sentence as "AIG" or "credit default swaps" would be laughable if laughing weren't already so expensive.
This sordid story of government helplessness in the face of massive taxpayer commitments illustrates better than anything to date why the government should take over any ins ution that's "too big to fail" and which has cost taxpayers dearly. Such ins utions are no longer within the capitalist system because they are no longer accountable to the market. To whom should they be accountable? As long as taxpayers effectively own a large portion of them, they should be accountable to the government.
But if our very own Secretary of the Treasury doesn't even learn of the bonuses until months after AIG has decided to pay them, and cannot make stick his decision that they should not be paid, AIG is not even accountable to the government. That means AIG's executives -- using $170 billion of our money, so far -- are accountable to no one.
Robert Reich is professor of public policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration.
© 2009 Robert Reich's Blog All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/131721/
===========
American "free market capitalism" is corrupt at the top, which controls the rest of the market, so it all corrupt, aided and abetted by the captured assholes in governemt.
March 15, 2009, 5:16 pm
A.I.G. Reveals Its Biggest Counterparties
Update | 6:23 p.m. The American International Group on Sunday released the names of financial ins utions that benefited last fall when the Federal Reserve saved it from collapse with an $85 billion rescue loan and then 3 subsequent bailouts.
The disclosure included counterparties to both its credit default swap operations and its securities lending businesses, both of which contributed heavily to A.I.G.’s troubles, as well as to muncipalities who participated in certain investment programs. All told, Sunday’s statement detailed payments of more than $94 billion, excluding payments to municipalities. All were made using government loans. (Read the disclosure by A.I.G. after the jump.)
Many critics of the company have demanded the names of A.I.G.’s counterparties as the insurer received government money totaling $170 billion. A.I.G. said in a statement that it made the disclosure in consultation with the Federal Reserve.
“Our decision to disclose these transactions was made following conversations with the counterparties and the recognition of the extraordinary nature of these transactions,” Edward M. Liddy, A.I.G.’s government-appointed chief executive, said in a statement.
Time and again, the rationale given for bailout out A.I.G. was that its credit default swap agreements — essentially insurance contracts on mortgage-backed securities — were so interwoven into the global financial web that to let the insurer fail would create chaos.
As the mortgages underlying the credit default swap agreements decayed, A.I.G. was required to post collateral to its counterparties. By September, the firm warned that it would run out of money, prompting the government to swoop in with its initial $85 billion loan. That money was used to post collateral to counterparties, including France’s Société Générale, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.
All told, the posting of collateral for the swap agreements cost $22.4 billion, A.I.G. said. The money was paid to the counterparties between Sept. 16 and Dec. 31.
A subsequent government bailout provided money for the Federal Reserve to buy the securities underpinning these credit default swap agreements, canceling the contracts. Nearly $30 billion was spent to do so.
Foreign banks, including Deutsche Bank, France’s Societe Generale and Calyon and Britain’s Barclays, figured prominently among the firm’s credit default swap counterparties.
Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and others also were owed money under securities lending agreements with the insurer. In this business, A.I.G. lent out shares in companies, primarily to hedge funds that sold short. While the business is normally considered safe, A.I.G. had reinvested proceeds from the business into mortgage-backed securities to earn a higher return. Those investments have since sunken in value.
Nearly $44 billion was paid out to 20 firms, most of which were banks.
(One non-bank that appeared on the list was the Citadel Investment Group, the giant hedge fund based in Chicago. It received about $200 million.)
A.I.G. also disclosed $12.1 billion in payments to municipalities, including about $1 billion each to California and and Virginia, under guaranteed investment agreements. These were essentially places for municipalities to hold money raised from the likes of bond issuances until the cash was needed.
The insurer has already taken fire this weekend for its plans to pay out more than $165 million in bonuses to employees in the unit that brought A.I.G. down to its knees. Despite the consternation of the Obama administration and Republicans alike, the company was allowed to make the payments because of contractual obligations.
At a Senate Banking Committee hearing earlier this month, legislators demanded to know who was on the opposite side of the table from A.I.G. on these contracts.
”We need to know who benefited, and we’re going to find out,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and the ranking member of the committee. ”The Fed can be secretive for a while but not forever.”
–Michael J. de la Merced
=================
That's how the AIG "TALENT" performs.
new yorks times
=liberal
Prosecute them! The DOJ needs to make examples of a few of these jokers.
They got free money for doing nothing but losing money, if you did that wouldn't you expect a bonus?
Even if AIG is somehow obligated, I would think the government could tie things up for a while. Also, I'd be interested in what happens to any exec who sues for his bonus.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/us...s/17obama.html
Obama Orders Treasury Chief to Try to Block A.I.G. Bonuses
By HELENE COOPER
Published: March 16, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama vowed to try to stop the faltering insurance giant American International Group from paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives, as the administration scrambled to avert a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street that could complicate Mr. Obama's economic recovery agenda.
"In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury," Mr. Obama said. He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner "to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole."
...
I guess the govt could sue as a shareholder, but on what basis? Some kind of securities fraud claim would have to be developed.
And your point is . . . ?
Obama came out today and instructed that all legal means necessary would be used to prevent the bonuses from being given out.
or if you prefer:
Translation:
"Yeah man, I tell ya what, man. That dang ol' Internet, man. You just go on there and point and click. Talk about W-W-dot-W-com. An' lotsa nekkid chicks on there, man. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. It's real easy, man."
Thanks ducks.
Last edited by RandomGuy; 03-16-2009 at 01:29 PM.
Regulation is not the answer. Let them do what they want, they will get it right eventually. Regulation is bad.
That bonus money will trickle down to us making less that 7 figures eventually.
Yeah - the bonuses are bull , but doesn't anyone else just roll their eyes at the outrage of those in DC - including Obama - at this amount of money when they didn't do about the billions in ear marks in the Omnibus bill?
Now, I am a believer that a lot of those earmarks are justified and none of these bonuses are, but the amounts are incredibly different as well.
I don't know, this form of populism in the context of everything thats happend just annoys me. I'm pretty outraged at AIG, but I'm pretty ing annoyed with the government as well.
If it's in their contracts, what are you supposed to do?
Renegotiate their contracts? Of course that means the people who receive the money have to agree to do so, which they most likely won't. I just hope this is a catalyst for a dramatic change in the way these CEO's and upper management are compensated. The gap in pay is phenomenal and outrageous. Stock Prices are the end all be all for these companies and they're obviously not an accurate indicator of the companies productivity or worth.
It's in their contract, do they deserve it? no. Are they en led to it? sadly yes
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