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A.I.G. to Pay $100 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Mar 14, 2009.

  1. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    A.I.G. to Pay $100 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout

    By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and PETER BAKER
    WASHINGTON — Despite being bailed out with more than $170 billion from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International Group is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

    An official in the Obama administration said Saturday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had called A.I.G.’s government-appointed chairman, Edward M. Liddy, on Wednesday and asked that the company renegotiate the bonuses.

    Administration officials said they had managed to reduce some of the bonuses but had allowed most of them to go forward after the company’s chief executive said A.I.G. was contractually obligated to pay them.

    In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Mr. Liddy wrote: “Needless to say, in the current circumstances, I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them.”

    The bonuses will be paid to executives at American International Group’s Financial Products division, the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps that protected investors from defaults on bond backed by subprime mortgages.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15AIG.html?hp
     
  2. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

  3. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    In before free-market dogmatist repeats the mantras he learned in sixth-grade social studies, insisting that large bonuses must be paid to make sure the best and brightest come to the company, ignoring the fact that the industry was torpedoed by people making obscene amounts of money.
     
  4. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I was working for a major airline on 9/11. Shortly after, we laid off a lot of people.

    Profits -- and profit sharing -- disappeared. Yet senior management received bonuses for reaching "performance goals" and they also received retention bonuses.

    The retention bonuses really bugged me -- and I let people know. Like now, there weren't lots of mid six figure jobs out there going empty. And none with the benefits they had -- think free airfare. There was also no rash of senior managers leaving either that prompted the bonuses either. In fact there were more departures in middle management.

    Anyway, it pissed me off then, and it pisses me off now.

    Where are these guys going to go if they don't get their retention bonuses?
     
  5. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Hell would be a great start
     
  6. SoCalScribe

    SoCalScribe Member

    What a joke. Public and shareholder outrage is the only thing that will stop such a practice. The government may censure them now and then, but this is such a common occurence that only public involvement is an effective long-term solution.
     
  7. hockeybeat

    hockeybeat Guest

    If the government is going to bail out the corporations that conspired to fuck up the economy, is it possible that there is a little regulation of our money? Why not have a governmental employee observe and determine how and where the AIG bailout money goes?
     
  8. JakeandElwood

    JakeandElwood Well-Known Member

    Fucking assholes.
     
  9. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    Social injustice -- evil -- disguised as honoring contractual obligations. Let's reward this too with more money. Please.
     
  10. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

  11. Ben There

    Ben There Guest

    Maybe this is the cover they need to finally nationalize one of these companies. Sorry, company's bankrupt. We can't pay you your bonus. Join the other creditors, preferably at the end of the line.
     
  12. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    The headline now says $165 Million and the story has been updated.

     
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