Feinberg Said to Lift $500,000 Cap for AIG Executives

[Cass]

Source: Bloomberg

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. paymaster for rescued companies, will exempt some executives at American International Group Inc. from a $500,000 salary cap after at least five employees threatened to quit because of the limits, people familiar with the matter said.

Feinberg may issue a ruling as early as next week on pay limits for 75 of the bailed-out insurer’s executives, the people said. Last week, five executives said they were prepared to resign if their compensation was significantly cut, according to the people, who declined to be named because the talks are ongoing. Two have since retracted the threat, the people said.

“It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘We’re going home and we’re taking our toys with us,” Frank Glassner, CEO of Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants LLC, said yesterday in an interview. By paying more in salary, AIG is “increasing what may be considered guaranteed pay.”

Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master for executive compensation, said in October that base salaries at AIG wouldn’t exceed $500,000 a year except in cases where there was “good cause” to pay more. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve officials have urged him to strike a balance between curbing excessive pay and retaining key employees. AIG was rescued with a bailout valued at $182.3 billion.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=agpK5b0lz7hA

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Good ole Feinberg.

[valerief]

2. After all, who can be expected to live on $500 grand a year?

:sarcasm:

[AndyA]

9. Hey, you don't expect the little wife to drive a year old Mercedes, do you?

And they simply CANNOT have another summer party at the Martha's Vineyard house without redecorating! (Everyone has already seen it the way it is.)

He needs a new boat to play with on weekends, and that $1.8 million office design is so 2006 now.

Really, how could you expect them to live on $500,000? That won't even cover the Manhattan Penthouse expenses, let alone the new limo!

What planet do you live on anyway?

:sarcasm: ;)

[The Wielding Truth]

3. So.. Does this mean Feingold is caving?

[TheEuclideanOne]

23. Disgusting but true.

Really. Shouldn't these situations be the easiest possible scenarios where somebody in charge of changing the system can put their foot down? If he can't tell the 5 of them to fuck off for threatening to quit, then who's side is he on? What he should be do is to take all 5 of them and make a public example of them. Personally, I would love to see a bullet in each of their heads, but I would never suggest that ;) . Instead, he should the whatever the financial/career equivalent of that is and hold a special press conference where he shames all 5 of them on Television and says..... So, who else thinks that they want to quit because they can't live on $500,000 a year?!?!?!? Anybody? Anybody?

[flyingfysh]

4. I guess he had to do it

They ran AIG into the ground. If they quit, they would just join some other company and ruin that one instead. Most people don't have the ability to bankrupt a company so quickly.

[YOY]

5. Um...why? Is there an actual benefit to doing that?

n/t

[TCJ70]

6. They owe us quite a bit of money...

...pay them the same amount and take it out of their paychecks in the form of taxes until we get it back.

[Hubert Flottz]

7. Change you can count on...right?

The CEOs are "Too Big To Fail"

[valerief]

13. Yeah, more like "the status quo" you can count on. nt

[clear eye]

8. I'm picking my jaw up off the floor.

When I read yesterday that those idiots threatened to quit I thought those in charge would just laugh at them. I mean, so what? The next in line there would love to be promoted, I'm sure.

Now I see that Feinberg & Co. inexplicably caved. I mean WTF???

This decision had to come from the highest level, and it's damned depressing.

[NBachers]

26. Yeah, you're right. His response should've been "Fuck You Douchebags!"

Let the door hit your sorry ass on the way out.

[Name removed]

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[MannyGoldstein]

10. The Spelunker

He'll cave at every opportunity (or at least his boss will).

[KeepItReal]

11. "Talent Retention" as a reason for outlandish Wall St. compensation is a fraking joke

If these AIG SOB's can't live on $500k, let em walk and try their hand on the free market of the unemployed seeking work.

[JoeyT]

12. Next up

The administration acts shocked that people are pissed off about this.

[Plucketeer]

14. I don't think so.

I think they'll just be baffled that we even noticed.

[ArcticFox]

15. I'll bet the raise the cap for all 75

Five threaten to leave. Two retract their threat, leaving three potential quitters. The article strongly implies that the caps will now be raised as to as many as 75 executives: "Feinberg may issue a ruling as early as next week on pay limits for 75 of the bailed-out insurer’s executives."

If Feinberg had any balls at all, he'd have fired all five of these guys immediately.

[RedCloud]

16. First lift off the tops of their heads to seek intelligent life signs.

Then take a vacation!

[Plucketeer]

17. I found a site where AIG employees can log complaints

I filed these thoughts for their consideration....

Like so many other citizens of the United States, I am shocked, outraged and insulted with the wanton contempt that the CEOs of AIG have towards us. We BAIL your incompetent butts out because you're supposedly "too big to fail", and you have the unmitigated GALL to whine that if you can't have your "bonuses" (blackmail leverage, from my vantage point!), you're going to go "elsewhere". God dammit - you're gonna make me cry.

Out here in the REAL world, the wife and me struggle to make ends meet each month - me on SS and her hanging in there in hopes the promised "carrot" of retirement keeps swinging from it's stick for another four years. Meanwhile, you fat cat ass holes are crying that you can't have your EXTRA millions to support your lavish existences.
Guys - if we who are bailing down here in the bilges, and balking at dining on the rats - are irritating you while you eat at the Ritz - PLEASE! Show us your importance and LEAVE! Leave our AIG in the "lurch" you seem to think is YOUR insurance policy. Certainly, things couldn't get any WORSE if you left!

In spite of my being a simple citizen/bailout participant, I've listed myself on this form, as an employee of AIG. Technically, that's not true - but I/we damned sure OUGHT to have a say in how AIG conducts itself when I'm floating it a loan to keep it from collapsing!


Bonus........... In my little, insignificant world, a bonus is an UNEXPECTED little "extra" that your boss or your company CHOOSES to hand you because you've done a good job and they want to show their appreciation. It's NOT a make-or-break thing that you decide to quit over, and it's not something that's contractually pre-agreed to. In the case of AIG, your threat of leaving over bonus suppression is a contemptuous INSULT to we wee ones. Of course, in your chauffered limos with the darkened windows, how could you ever detect the collective scowl on our faces?

[bluedigger]

18. Fuck that noise!

Feinberg's ass can hit the bricks, too!

[laughingliberal]

19. Words fail me nt

[Octafish]

20. If you can't find people to work for $500K / year, we've got a problem.

There are tons of people applying at the Walmart for jobs paying $7 / hour.

Wait a minute!

Why don't we get those CEOs to work at Walmart and get teh Walmart people to run AIG? They can't run it any worse than what the $500K turds are doing.

[unabelladonna]

21. feckless fool feinberg

i guess he empathizes with the extortionists' bitching. he knows how difficult it is to live on 1/2 million a year. there's got to be a mass purge of the cabinet...now. i'm not sure how much longer we can tolerate the contemptuous attitudes "the talent" at AIG and other bailed out cesspools have toward the american people.

[edc]

22. Don't let tje door hit you in the ass

on your way out boys and girls.

[Doctor_J]

24. How long before the US insurgents start to take the country back

news like this will not go unanswered forever.

[neshanic still]

25. So when you think about Ken and his role...

He really is a person hired to deal with the big pay issues of how many people? Conservatively guess. I mean we actually have a government agency that has a "Paymaster" that considers pay. For people making too much money. When individuals are upset they may be getting less, say these FIVE FUCKING PEOPLE, he jumps on the case! Problems? He has solutions! Instantly. For five fucking pieces of shit.

[Name removed]

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[DebbieCDC]

28. This is such a crock of shit

When the fuck is this shit going to end? I am sick and tired of the "used to be" America middle class being treated like a bunch of prostitutes for the johns on Wall Street.

[Name removed]

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[amandabeech]

31. Forget insurance reform. We have absolutely no finance reform whatsoever.

Sometimes I think that the insurance thing is a big diversion from what is not getting done in financial services reform and the economy.

Look! See all the action over here in insurance!!!! Good guys, bad guys!!!! Action, action, action!!!!

Don't look over there at that dreary financial stuff that no one can understand. Trust us, it's not worth your time.