Bonuses For AIG

The BBQ Pit
201

I’m in the financial industry. My company received Tarp dollars. I received a retention bonus.

Some of the stupid things my company did impeded my ability to earn money. I could have moved to a less stupid company. My company is basically paying me what I would have earned had they not been so stupid. The hope is that I will not leave.

This bonus was defined back in August, and I was presented with a contract. In December I received it.

At AIG we are talking about several different types of bonuses. First off we have retention bonuses. These are simply to stop people from leaving who are suffering a downtown because of their company’s stupidity. They could leave and earn money in an uninterrupted fashion, but the company is paying them to stay as an investment in their earning power. If you don’t pay them, they will go and the company will be further weakened in its ability do business and get out of this mess.

Another type of bonus is a performance bonus. Do “X” and you get “Y”.

Another type of bonus is given to traders. Traders typically receive a small salary and are given a bonus as a percentage of the gross profits they generated in the past year. This bonus is the bulk of their compensation. There are many good traders who were good custodians of their firms assets who made money and are expecting to be compensated. If they are not, they will go elsewhere.

There are bonuses for clerical staff for being efficient.

There are bonuses for executives in management for managing employees.

Now, I don’t wish to debate “deserve,” but I will debate “entitled.” My understanding, directly from Obama in his speech today is that these bonuses were contracted for quite some time ago, like a year, long before the current CEO was in place.

I believe a company should fulfill it’s contractual obligations to those employees, just as it should fulfill say, a life insurance contract, or any other written financial obligation. If there are any discretionary bonuses, I don’t think those fall into that category.

I find the idea of a special tax to reclaim those bonuses as very scary. Ex Post Facto legislation. I find the idea of this sort of blackmail the government is pulling as repugnant. Would they expect the recipient of a life insurance policy payout to refuse it? This contractual obligation is no different.

What I find most disturbing is the fact that these bonuses were contractually obligated a year ago. The government chooses this moment to make a stink about them? Nobody can claim they didn’t know about them before. This has been on the books for quite some time.

It seems to me disingenuous in the extreme, and I find the sense of moral outrage from the likes of Barney Frank, and Dodd disingenuous in the extreme as these two jokers have grown fat and powerful off the largesse of the taxpayer, nor can the former claim blamelessness in the current debacle.

The question I ask is what are they trying to distract me from?

202

I also feel great sympathy for the victims of injustice. However, my proletarian principles demand that I feel less sympathy for victims of injustice who happen to be filthy rich. Really, my hands are tied.

203

FTR, I’m not filthy rich. Wish I were. You hit on a point though which I find problematic. It seems like there’s this huge backlash against being successful, or being wealthy.

You said it well. You feel less sympathy for for victims of injustice who are rich. Most rich people that I know are rich because of a combination of prudence, very hard work, and a little luck.

I am not arguing that here that you are prejudice here, but let me ask. But let me ask, what is the difference between being less sympathetic to somebody because they are rich and being less sympathetic to somebody because they are… say black, or jewish, or gay.

What being rich, black, gay, or jewish all have in common is that they are traits that don’t tell you anything truly meaningful about the quality of the person that carries that trait. Therefore it seems to me that it is wrong to judge somebody just on that trait.

Where am I wrong?

204

Hmmm. Would you rather be black, jewish, gay, or rich? Take your time, think it over…

205

Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s not about BEING wealthy. It’s about how that wealth was acquired. AIG and others played ducks and drakes with my 401k and others’ pensions, among other things. All in the name of greed. THAT should not be rewarded.

Oh, we won’t even go there–a “little” luck? As if. How about the perpetuation of the wealth cycle that so depends on birth, color, gender, socioeconomic status, schooling etc. Spare us the Algernon Rags to Riches story.

I’ll bet that there are some of these financial wizs out there who are black, gay or Jewish. So? Being black, gay or Jewish doesn’t exclude you from being a conscienceless bastard. I refuse to see these guys–any of these guys-- be they black, gay AND Jewish, as victims. Sorry. I’ve got my parents to worry about. Parents in their 70s, whose 401ks are fucked. I think these poor AIG guys can retire quite well on the strength of their bonuses alone. Too bad they’ll have to give up flying first class. Cry me a river.

I don’t like the tax after the fact, either, and I doubt it would hold up in court. Since an appeal to their sense of virtue (excuse me while I laugh hysterically) or their moral fiber (about the same as a Pop Tart) will not work, we have no choice but to pay the bastards. But we can make them do a walk of shame. I sincerely hope that their names become anathema to the financial sector and that they ALL end up flipping burger or greeters at Walmart. Better yet, let them work a call center and take abuse for 8 hours a day. Oh, and then, let’s steal their pension money and then shrug and say, Oops, our bad. Too bad, suckers, you lose.

206

You hit the nail on the head. We are all so pissed at AIG for being so solvent and it’s employees so successful, that we feel we must punish them. Yepper, that’s it.

207

Does the fact that 11 of those getting the so called retention bonus no longer work there any more change things? One of them is getting 4 1/2 million and he is gone. Does the idea that they weren’t getting the bonus before TARP ,play in your equations?They were going out of business. we saved them from being unemployed. They would nave been job hunting. Now they get millions in taxpayer money.

208

nitpick:

I think you mean “Horatio Alger” story… not “Mouse named Algernon” story.

/nitpick

but you are right, right, right when you said

I have no problem with people who get rich without exploiting others, or swindling people, or simply being born into it (and then being a prick). It’s just that there are so few people that became rich that way… and it certainly seems that the people we are discussing here we less than honest, less than capable, and little more than swindlers.

209

Psychoanalyze a company? how about they knew what they were doing and that it was risky; they just thought they were invincible. They were wrong.

I am angry at more than the Lehman, Bear, AIG et al. I am angry at the banks who pushed the loans onto people. I am angry at Joe Blow who grabbed at a mortgage he didn’t have a hope of paying off. I’m angry at the mortgage brokers who didn’t even check to see if Joe was employed before giving him a loan AND not explaining to him the small print. I’m angry at the moron who thought that slicing up debt somehow made it an asset. I’m angry at the speculators who took this debt and sold it globally, thus complicating the picture and affecting world markets. I’m angry at Freddie Mac etc for thinking that every American could handle a mortgage and deserved a home, regardless of credit risk. I am even angry at the myth of Capitalism–that mighty love of the dollar that causes sensible people to actually swallow shit like leverages of 30:1 and say stuff like “the housing market can only go up!”. Believe me, I have enough anger to go all the way around. And then to be told (not just by you, but in RL, too) that I just don’t “understand” this, is a bit much. I get it. I do. I get rapacious greed and lack of conscience. Too bad those are seen as assets in the white collar world (and the blue collar, for all I know).

AKA they know fuck all and shouldn’t have been in charge of a lemonade stand. There were bankers who tried to warn against this stuff (my husband works in banking; he has shared some stories with me), but they were mostly shouted down. I don’t know if it was herd mentality or just greed or both, but here we are.

Excuse me? We, the USA, OWN 80% of that company. If enough stockholders say “off with their heads”, the management has to pay attention, no? Probably not, sadly enough. We’re the schliemels here; the sad truth is that we are not the schliemels at all, the AIG people who did this are.

I agree, although for many years, Chrysler stood as one time thing. Now I think there will be a sense of entitlement by the private sector. And that sucks for the middle class. I want nothing to do with bailing out some company whose exec staff can’t manage it.

210

It’s true that some folks who’s pension funds have gone poof! face an old age of penury and want, but what is that next to giving up a charming ski chalet in Aspen? Perspective, people!

211

Thank you. I couldn’t remember the name of that squirt who harkens from Victorian times, another era of unfettered greed. Then again, Algernon kinda fits too–he ended up w/o much brain, no? (very lame joke).

Oh, I’m only talking about this debacle, but if you* made money exploiting child labor in India (or fill in the blank–strip mining, illegal dumping, laundering money etc), I’d express contempt for you then, too.

*generic you.

212

Weird.

I don’t ever think about my livelihood this way, I don’t think. I’m more concerned with being able to do my job. And my job isn’t earning money. I perform a service for people, and they pay me for that service. But my ability isn’t “to earn money”, it’s “to perform a service”.

YMMV, of course.

213

Do you have a cite for that? Because you are wrong (at least for value of “rich” that include all millionaires).

214

Absitively, posolutely! You read any rich guy’s autobiography, each and every one of them got there by hard work and virtue.

215

I don’t need a cite, cocksucker. This ain’t GD. Now fuck off.

216

Yeah, well, keep in mind, Bo, an oral compulsion can be a very endearing characteristic…

217

OH, OK THEN.

Just make up stuff to believe and go on and believe it with your bad self then. See if I care.

218

Seems to work for you!

219

Give me one example of that. Thanks.

Also, I’m going to bed, so I’ll respond to whatever drivel you post in the morning.

220

Only one? Then you will shut the fuck up? Sir, I will endeavor to find that one thing, if it takes all night!