AIG staff: We deserve this money

[Joanne98]

Source: The Hill


AIG’s new management team last year proposed that its employees give up their “retention” bonuses, or at least reduce them. The response from the 370 or so employees set to rake in $450 million in bonuses through 2010?

Take a hike.


“We suggested that early on, but there are people who feel this money was due them,” a source close to the company told The Hill.



It apparently didn’t matter that taxpayers have provided $170 billion and counting to bail out AIG. “Quants,” the people who put together the computer-programmed algorithms behind the complicated hedges and trades that brought down the company, pushed back hard against any notion they should sacrifice their bonuses, the source said.


If that doesn’t warm the hearts of taxpayers and lawmakers alike, maybe this will: Many of those receiving bonuses already have made enough money not to have to work again.


Not all of the workers in AIG’s financial products division were taking home million-dollar bonuses. But according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the division’s top recipient got $6.4 million, while the top 10 bonuses totaled $42 million. Seventy-three people received bonuses of $1 million or more, according to Cuomo, who subpoenaed the company for information.


“It’s terrible; it’s disheartening,” the source said.


That’s the line AIG CEO Edward Liddy is expected to take with Congress on Wednesday during what is expected to be a grilling before a House Financial Services subcommittee.


Liddy, who contributed $2,300 to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential bid last year, took on an annual salary of $1 when he came to AIG on Sept. 17, 2008, amid the company’s collapse.




Read more: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/staff-uh-uh-we-deserve-this-money-2009-03-17.html

[supernova]

1. Employees "pushed back?"

:wtf:

Is Mgmt a bunch of pussycats now?

It's now the employees fault because mgmt didn't know how to keep control of the company?

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Every single one of them

should be put in front of the Barney Frank committee (I'm too pressed for time to look up the official title) and be put on tv so they can individually and personally explain to the committee, to congress, and to the taxpayers what they did to deserve this money. How much food did they grow to feed how many people? How many homes did they build or shoes did they make or what other material contribution did they make to the public good?


And then, like on American Idol, we all get to vote on whether they get to keep their bonus or get shoved out the back door into an alley where they can fight off the cats for the scraps in the dumpster.

I'm normally a fairly rational person. I don't believe in the death penalty and I'm anti-war. But I can honestly understand how the populace can be whipped into a bloodlust rage that becomes violent revolution.

As I said before, we need fewer quants and more quals. these people are so removed from contact with the real world and real people that they've lost their humanity.


OWTH.



Tansy Gold

[whathehell]

5. I love your suggestion! n/t

[notesdev]

6. It's the House Banking Committee

And Frank ought to be on the testifying side of the table. He's way too wrapped up in this to conduct credible oversight at this point.

[Stargazer09]

7. Sounds good to me!

I like your idea. These people have lost all touch with reality, and considering that what they did is criminal (or should be), they don't deserve that money.

[Mari333]

3. anyone who recieves bonuses should have their name and address

made available to the taxpayers...we are paying their salaries and bonuses with our tax monies, so its our right to know.

[gratuitous]

4. Dear AIG employees and former employees

I got yer bonus right here.

Come and get it.

[No Elephants]

13. They already have it. So, it's up to us to get it back. Meanwhile, all the focus on millions takes

the focus off billions and trillions.

[pattmarty]

8. Fire all the whining motherfuckers, and replace them with out............

............of work accounting people. Let those cocksuckers collect unemployment and lose their homes.

[acmavm]

14. Your's is the BEST suggestion in this thread! Replace them with people

who aren't of the notion that they are 'special'. That their wants and needs aren't above those of the rest of the country. That they live by the same laws, rules, and regulations that the rest of us do. And that they understand that they have to ensure that the company be a good 'citizen' of the US (since corps are seen to have the 'rights' of an individual) and contribute to the health, welfare, and advancement of our nation and not its downfall and destruction.

There are plenty of intelligent, smart, honest people out there. America has had the notion that the wealthy are somehow more qualified to run this country than someone who grew up poor or middle class. Well, Barack Obama has laid the lie to that story. He himself is proof that great minds and talent can be found in every level of our society.

[Lost in CT]

20. I recieved a 20 million bonus at a legally dead company....

Go ahead fire me...see if I care...

(On Edit I am speaking as if I was an AIG employeee I myself recieve bonuses that often involve the word gift card)

[lazer47]

9. They "deserve" the money,, and all the jail time that goes with it

[dipsydoodle]

10. I have to assume there is something they are unable to grasp

about the expression "Fuck off"

[Lorien]

11. This is insane. SALARY CAPS NOW!

I saw this first hand when I work for a film studio that started handing out million dollar bonuses to it's top employees. The quality of the work took a nosedive once Big Money became a part of the equation. When employees were making 45-150k a year they were passionate about their work and HAPPY, but when they started making350k a year with million dollar bonuses EVERYTHING became focused on money and outward displays of wealth. The work suffered horribly, people were unhappy and turned on one another over who made what and why Bob was making more than Joe. The bigger the bonuses the greater the chance for failure-that's what I've seen. Give them a 500k yearly earnings cap PERIOD. You won't find the good ones turning down that kind of pay. The CEO of Costco makes 300k a year by choice and his company is doing very well. Enough with the excessive bonuses for failed employees!

[bluestateguy]

12. In the Soviet Union, they all would have been executed by now

or at least sent to the Gulag.

[mbperrin]

15. Deserve these bonuses? Wow! Wonder what I deserve for showing up for work and

NOT bankrupting the outfit I work for during the last 13 years?

I think I'll have a little chat with the boss and let him know how terrible and disheartening it is not to make a huge bonus.

Perhaps if I threaten to fuck everything up, he'll see it my way.

Or maybe I should make myself a little appointment with the unemployment office first.

[Gin]

16. they deserve a weekend with Bernie in his Pen-house! (IMO)

[L0oniX]

17. Gee ...wouldn't it be nice to have a list of those employees?

[Kalyan]

18. don't sweat ...

I don't know why US is sweating for the payment of $170 mn. All of you are just working on your anger. Chill folks! The anger should be directed at more appropriate places:

1. Did anyone notice the duplicity of AIG who published the recipient list of banks that received the bail-out money. $12 BILLION to Goldman Sachs. $100+ bn was given away like christmas gifts to various US & non-US banks. Why no outrage for that?

2. The outrage shouldn't be the $170 mn bonuses for the team that bought AIG to it's knees. The outrage should be WHY THE COMPANY DIDN'T REVEAL THE INFORMATION TILL NOW? The govt should be punished if they didn't ask for this information when bailing out AIG. AIG should be penalized if the govt asked for it and AIG didn't provide the information. If the govt received the information and kept it quiet, then someone in the govt (Obama? Timothy Geithner?) needs to answer the question.

3. Why hasn't the govt adopted laws to keep executive bonuses in check? The govt has various options:
* Provide an absolute upper limit for all companies ($1/10 mn)
* Provide a formula on profitability - after Mark-to-Market (All bonuses given out by the company cannot exceed 10% of that year's PAT)
* No limits on executive bonuses but taxation on bonus at 45% (for yearly amount less than $1 mn) and 55% (for yearly amounts above $ 1 mn)
* Bringing the stocks & options into the bonuses net and/or Taxation on stocks & options (50% of difference between current share price & price at which the stock option is being provided)

4. Re-evaluate country-wide laws (to examine if companies can pay bonuses if they are bankrupt/loss-making) that supersede these kind of contracts

If you think i am advocating higher regulation, then DAMN correct, i am. Taxpayer money has been wasted by Congress & Wall Street for way too long.

[Magleetis]

19. Those employees

are the excrement that capitalism shits out. AIG is the giant asshole.

[Javaman]

21. I feel sorry for the average schlubs, the paper pushers, the cleaning people

the mail room folks, However, I don't feel sorry for the assholes, you know the ones, the middle management air hogs on up to the platinum plated bathroom fixture ceo's. they can go fuck themselves.

and the last time I checked, a bonus was just that, a FUCKING BONUS for doing a good job, not something you automatically get for filling a spot for a year.

fucking pigs.