suits at AIG to get millions, while hourly autoworkers are flamed for making a living

[89sandman]

this totally pisses me off!!! these losers are the ones who got us into this mess, and they want to be rewarded for thier incompetence run your company into the ground and expect to get paid??? the ceo states that if bonuses aren't paid would be hard for them to attract top employees. hey mister ceo if your top employees are what got you where you are maybe you should try someone else??? what TOTAL LOSERS, only a suit would think he's entitled to a bonus when his company has gone belly up. i guess thats what happens when you don't work for a living...

 

[JSCC]

While I agree totally that they should not get bonuses, are you for real? Because they wear suit they dont work for a living? What do the people wear that created YOUR job?

 

[Mooseknuckle]

Why wasn't anyone this mad before the bubble popped?

 

[JSCC]

alot of us are self employed small business owners.who created my job?.ME.not some jackoff in a suit.

I am a small business owner too. I take suit's money everyday, therefore they created my job, and pay me to do it......

 

[Fosgate]

It's not just "The Suits" that put us in the situation now. You can also point toward govt for their part. So Far the bailout is just under 9 trillion for a total. That is a drop in the bucket compaired to the $54 Trillion that the govt had us on the hook for before. You can thank the politicans back to the Nixon era for this. And thank the politicians for blowing the surplus's in the budget in 98, 99, 00 instead of puting it towards the deficet. And for penalizing banks for not buying more high risk mortgages forcing the housing bubble in the first place.

 

[tech a]

The problem these days is no one want's to do the right thing if it affects
them directly....They should not take the bonus's or take a reduced bonus...
but, if it was in their contract, they are entitiled to it.
Just as the auto workers are....

In my mind the bigger question should be: why did Foreign Banks (Deutch, france) get our bailout money? Should their portion have not come from
Germany and France? It's not only in this case, a LOT of our bailout money
went to FOREIGN countries....that is BS!

 

[duffman]

AIG is a huge company. There were some key people there who made huge mistakes, and we have already rewarded their failure with the bailout in the first place. Now, they are trying to reward some of the people at that company that were actually producing/achieving and the government is crying foul? Sounds to me like congress is trying to run it like any other venture in government, reward incompetence and penalize achievement, thus perpetuating the bureaucracy. Not to mention performing employees are contractually obligated to bonuses. The government assumed the contractual obligations of AIG when they took control. Our entire system is based off contractual obligations, now the government can arbitrarily decide to negate a contract because they don't like it?

 

[Scut Farkus]

Now, they are trying to reward some of the people at that company that were actually producing/achieving and the government is crying foul?

help me out here-how is losing $64,000,000,000 (six-four and nine zero's) in just the last quarter of 2008 considered producing/achieving?

 

[Turbo Tim]

I fixed a car for AIG the other day , needless to say I made sure the check cleared before I released the car .

 

[FriscoProx]

Before we have gov't breaking private employment contracts and confiscating certain peoples earnings, does anybody here know who these employees are, what their job function was, and what these bonuses are based on?

Be careful about buying into this symbolic outrage and class warfare BS. The vast majority of these people (6400 of them) are garden variety insurance salespeople that did what they were employed to do, who make little or no base salary, and contractually entitled to this money.

Imagine if you worked a GM or Chrysler car lot, sold a vehicle and found out the Gov't was confiscating your commission because some exec in Detroit f'ed up!

 

[Dogmeat]

You guys do realize had these bonus' not been paid out, they would have been sued into paying them, costing even more, right?

Also, think about it .... Last bonus check I got I was taxed at %45 on.

And these guys sure as hell aren't getting anything back on their tax returns.

So roughly half of the money that is paid out in bonus' goes back to the federal government anyways.

Personally I think this whole issue is being blown way out of proportion.

 

[Scut Farkus]

Imagine if you worked a GM or Chrysler car lot, sold a vehicle and found out the Gov't was confiscating your commission because some exec in Detroit f'ed up!

a salesman is paid their commission by the dealer, not the manufacturer. completely different scenario.

 

[Ollie]

okkkkkkkk.
First off, Obama and his head bobbing cronies knew about the pay outs back in Jan.
They either knew about it (since it was all over the news), or they are incompetant.

Fact of the matter is, the only reason Obama and the libs are yelling now is because of public outrage and the fact the newest polls show that the public is turning on them. It shows for the first time in 5 years that the public us turning more and more towards the republican party for financial matters. According to the poll they blame the Dems for throwing money away and growing the size of government.

The point that is taken and being driven home is this. How can we say throwing money at the problem will solve it when the deficit was a leading cause of the calapse.
In essence, if debt caused the crash, how can creating more debt cure it?

As for the surplus in 98, 99 and 2000. Little thing called 9-11.
Clinton raped the military and sold our strategic stockpiles to china to do it.
Clinton hid the fact the economy was headed down hill in an attempt to get a dem into office. Dropped the whole thing in Bush's lap and ran for his life.

This financial mess we are in goes back to the late 70's.
It started with the socialization of programs and the growing sence of entitlement in this country.
The Dems and to a lesser degree the Republicans capitalized on this to get votes and drove more and more people to the belief that it takes the government to accomplish anything. The more they did that, the more personal responsiblity died.

Now we have over 40% of the country contributing nothing and taking 75% of what the remaining 60% produce.

 

[Dogmeat]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/18/aig.bonuses.congress/index.html

So in other words, yes this whole thing was blown completley out of proportion.

 

[luvtoride]

While I see the point that they were probably entitled to them, why take them? At least publicly?

That had to be the WORST P.R. move imaginable, if you are entitled to the money, take it, because its yours, but don't call it a "bonus", don't make it public, and for god's sake, don't let the press find out! The media is taking these things and absolutely chastising them for it, you have to wonder if the reception of these bonuses was actually supposed to be private...because no CEO or big wig wants this kind of scrupulous dogging from the press, and now congress itself.

 

[luvtoride]

okkkkkkkk.
First off, Obama and his head bobbing cronies knew about the pay outs back in Jan.
They either knew about it (since it was all over the news), or they are incompetant.

Fact of the matter is, the only reason Obama and the libs are yelling now is because of public outrage and the fact the newest polls show that the public is turning on them. It shows for the first time in 5 years that the public us turning more and more towards the republican party for financial matters. According to the poll they blame the Dems for throwing money away and growing the size of government.

The point that is taken and being driven home is this. How can we say throwing money at the problem will solve it when the deficit was a leading cause of the calapse.
In essence, if debt caused the crash, how can creating more debt cure it?

As for the surplus in 98, 99 and 2000. Little thing called 9-11.
Clinton raped the military and sold our strategic stockpiles to china to do it.
Clinton hid the fact the economy was headed down hill in an attempt to get a dem into office. Dropped the whole thing in Bush's lap and ran for his life.

This financial mess we are in goes back to the late 70's.
It started with the socialization of programs and the growing sence of entitlement in this country.
The Dems and to a lesser degree the Republicans capitalized on this to get votes and drove more and more people to the belief that it takes the government to accomplish anything. The more they did that, the more personal responsiblity died.

Now we have over 40% of the country contributing nothing and taking 75% of what the remaining 60% produce.

Lets not forget about the rise of the dot coms, and the subsequent fall of said dot coms. The rise significantly assisted Clinton in looking like an economic genious, then the crash made Bush look like a jackass.

 

[spring snow hero]

well where I come from if I work I get paid, if I don't I call the labor board and then get paid. a company that can't pay it's bills needs to be shut down before it racks up more bills. there freaking job is to manage money....perhaps they should try firing the crew they have and hiring some new blood.....how much worse could it be.

there must be some congressional accounts secured by AIG to make sooooo much hubub over one company.

 

[duffman]

help me out here-how is losing $64,000,000,000 (six-four and nine zero's) in just the last quarter of 2008 considered producing/achieving?

Where AIG got into trouble was insuring complicated financial products like derivatives. There are many divisions to that company. If that company wants to continue they have to keep the people that had sustainably made money for many years.

 

[Scut Farkus]

Where AIG got into trouble was insuring complicated financial products like derivatives. There are many divisions to that company. If that company wants to continue they have to keep the people that had sustainably made money for many years.

i can see your point about pleasing the people in the profitable divisions but it doesn't sound like that is where the money is going. and how do we know that those people aren't being used as umbrellas? besides that, the fact that they bought up these junk loans when they knew the consumers would not be able to afford them says quite a bit about the overall direction of the organization. the consumers shouldn't have committed to something they knew they couldn't afford but they didn't approve themselves for the loans. there is just as much fault coming from the other side of the desk. all parties are guilty in my opinion.