How dare these people ridicule the successful AIG executives…You know damn well that if any one of these protestors was handed a bonus check they would have taken it and deposited it the same day…One woman complains in the article that she loves her home and wants help from people to stay in it…Let me ask the forum this,isn’t it feasible that these people were living above their means if they are in such bad shape right now…A house is a luxury,not a right…These people make me sick,Obama makes me sick…
I do not begrudge people to earn any amount of money they can legally earn.
However, I DO NOT believe the bonuses should be paid from taxpayer dollars. And, if they can afford to provide the bonuses from other than taxpayer funds, they didn’t need the bailout in the first place.
The excuse of “retention”, I believe, is BS. Where are they going to go? Not too many places hiring financial execs these days.
It should have been a pre-condition of providing the bailout funds that these companies clean house of the management bloat and incompetence that got them in trouble in the first place. You could be pretty damm sure that if I bought 80% of a failing business I’d clean house and cut fat. Bonuses should be earned, not a taxpayer entitlement.
The true anger should be directed at Gheittner and congress. Tiny Tim requested the bonuses to be included and congress never read the bill before approving it. In my opinion, if the govt. has the right to change the contract regarding bonuses, companies have the right to go back and change the definition of a bonus. Wall St. will ALWAYS outsmart the govt. Companies will find a way to compensate employees in order to keep good people. We talk about bailouts as if the money given out will not be paid back. This is ( to my understanding) a loan that will be paid back. If you want the loan to be paid back, you have to help that company make money to do that.
Take alot of people who favor this site…many own rental property or invest in property. If they make a bad buy, miscalculate, mismanage a rental, don’t pay bills, payroll. insurance, etc. the only one’s who get hurt are themselves.
Not only is there no safety net, government, towns and municipalities keep making more and more rules, regulations. inspections, demands on them while the value of property may be going down along with the quality of buyers/tenants and sale prices/rents…
I say either change the gameplan for AIG exec’s or offer Landlords and Investors the same deal…it is the democratic thing to do… :biggrin
I agree RookieNYC! The socialists are intent on promoting class warfare so that they can steal from those that are productive and give to the lazy. Moreover, the socialist idiots in congress are using this as opportunity to illegally use the tax code to punish individuals. This is VERY DANGEROUS and could easily lead to civil war if the socialists keep fanning the flames!
One Big A$$ Mistake, America (big brother is going to be watching me now. I made fun of “THE MESSIAH”
With any luck at all, the 2010 Congressional Elections will be a replay of 1994, with people that are TRULY conservative taking back Congress. Hopefully, the liberal-lights like McCain, Specter, Snow, and the likes of them will go away too.
These people that work for AIG are employees just like them. They just make a bit more than that truck driver does. He makes more than the guy that washes dishes at McDonalds but he doesn’t think that is unfair. It is the same thing. Some jobs just pay better than others. You don’t see them protesting in from of A-Rod’s house. He makes millions of dollars as an employee. He plays in a stadium built with tax payer’s money.
This is ok…there should be NO OUTRAGE at this…this is perfectly normal???
In retrospect, we (the taxpayer) should pay for the AIG executives luxuries and more importantly, their failure…but its unethical and socialistic to help the average person who is losing their home???
This entire bailout is a LOAN. This loan will be paid back. The guy losing his home doesn’t have to pay back a govt. loan. Let’s not start thinking this is a gift. The taxpayer is not giving money, their loaning money.
My reasoning is that if I ( the taxpayers) give a loan to a neighbor (AIG) who claims to be broke, going into bankruptcy and then I go online to find them on vacation at a luxery resort…whether they pay me back or not is irrevelent…Im going to be PISSED!!! If I loan money to a friend and he goes on vacation it shows maybe why he needed the loan to begin with. I would also question his honesty and his ability to repay.
AIG is not on vacation. It is working through problems in its investment structure. The people you are looking at do not own AIG. They are employees. Your analogy is if AIG took the money and continued to purchase questionable investments. You should be pissed then. You should not be bothered by them paying its employees anymore that you would be upset that they paid the rent, computer services or utilities. They need to keep the lights on to stay in business just like they need to retain their employees.
AIG is the entity, the executives are employees. You will probably find that they pay far more in computer services than bonuses. Maybe we should be outraged that they don’t have all their employees hooked up to Toast.net getting dial up at their work stations for $9/month… They are running a business here. They can’t just go and hire Nadya Suleman (Octomom) for these jobs. They need bonafide executives. In order to get them you have to pay them.
I just wish all this righteous indignation for $165 Million in bonuses AIG was contractually obligatied to pay, and Obama, his administration, his Treasury Secretary AND the Dems HAD them pay, was focused on the real waste involved here.
Think about it JCar, you are exercised over $165 million in bonuses and a $400K retreat (corporate events are usually paid for in advance, or a sizeable portion thereof), because you are following the crowd on this… Otherwise, how do you explain how you are you not 10X as upset with the government for not only voting for the very legislation that contained this, but not even READING it BEFORE doing so! What exactly are we paying them for? Not to mention that they had THEIR OWN “retreat” around the same time ALSO costing hundreds of thousands, so they could plan on how to spend EVEN MORE. That money, just like the $75 BILLION the government OVERPAID from the TARP fund WENT UP IN FLAMES!
And these are now the same people you now want to trust with 1/7th of the entire GDP on healthcare? Where’s the outrage at Obama and Dodd, the top recipients of AIG “lobbyist” money, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars… you’ll note that neither one of them have offered to return that money… ALSO taxpayer money, right?..
You have been fooled by slight of hand… they got you worked up on $165 Million in bonuses that are a part of a loan, all the while wasting BILLIONS more of the taxpayers money that you now have 0% chance of ever seeing again… do you not feel duped at all? So much for a “free” press - otherwise this would be front page news…
I understand that AIG in itself is an entity and that executives are employees. However, AIG operates under the guidence of its executives. AIG is the vechicle that the executives use to gain profit for the company and to earn a salary. AIG cannot speak for itself its a brand. The executives do. I’m not outraged by their salary, I hope to work up the corporate ladder. Pay the executives their salaries, yes! Thats a part of business. Pay for them to go to sunny California, NO! I don’t see how thats a part of business. Thats not nessecary to keep the doors open so they can payback their bailout or loan.
We talk all the time on this board about people who live beyond their means do not deserve any goverment help. How can you justify a corporate vacation as not living beyond their coropate means? How can you justify a BONUS not a salary? If now at work I scew up a project or a client relationship, I dont get rewarded. I might get fired if the scew up is big enough. When I succed I am rewarded verbally and montary. Why should AIG executives be any different?
I not blind to it. I even understand that AIG is really the “fall guy” for the companies who AIG insured on their investments. I will agree with you 100% that AIG is being overly scutinized in the grand scheme of things. They are not the only bad guys here.
But they speak to whats wrong with mostly politicians and huge corporations Its entitlement! It seems as if they feel they deserve that vacation. They deserve this bailout and who am I as a little guy to question them because they are supposedly succesful, smart and powerful. But yet AIG fail as an entity, just as the Smith family failed as smaller version of an entity or unit. The Smith family can’t pay their bills and neither can AIG. I disagree with the way the bailout has been handled to an extent, from the previous to the current adminstration. I sympathize with neighbors and friends who are feeling the effects of the current financial crisis. I dont sympathize with those who help create it any way.
Actually Bluemoon06, only half of the TARP was spent under Bush, which Obama voted for, and the Dems were the driving force behind, the second half IS on Obama, along with continuing with Paulsen and Bernanke, and adding Geitner, the $787 BILLION “stimulus” bill, the $400+ BILLION Omnibus bill, the coming $3.5 TRILLION budget, the across the board TAX INCREASE in the form of Cap 'N Trade (which will eliminate the paltry $13/week “tax cut” in the “stimulus”), nationalized healthcare, etc…
BTW, Obama specifically lobbied in January to make sure he got to spend the second half… There are many articles on it…
I certainly hope that you were just “misinformed”, otherwise you are just regurgitating what you are bring spoon-fed instead of thinking for yourself…
No I it is Bush’s plan. This plan is not a new plan. It is like if your wife starts cooking a chicken dinner and leaves. You come home to cook. You can either continue cooking chicken or cook cake. You end up with a chicken and cake dinner of a chicken dinner. This is Bush’s chicken dinner.
This is the same plan. The only difference is who is sitting in the office.