Read this

Specifically this part.
The company and some federal regulators have said it was obligated by contract to make the payments. Cuomo said the bonuses might have been fraudulent if AIG officials knew the company couldn’t afford them.

Cuomo said that despite their contracts, Financial Products employees agreed to take 2009 salaries of $1 in exchange for receiving their retention bonus packages. He said the fact AIG could negotiate the terms of the payments “flies in the face of AIG’s assertion” that it had no choice but to make the contractual bonus payments.
“You could argue if the taxpayers didn’t bail out AIG, those contracts wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s printed on,” he said Monday.

BOOM!
Contracts are broken every day of the week. Now STFU!

Yay!!!!

And which you seem to be lacking a precedent for.
Care to point me to anyone who backed Republicans citing this exact same principle when objecting to the entire stimulus spending?
I did actually make that comparison for a reason.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:59 am
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Don’t be such a dullard–I am obviously talking about PEOPLE as my post CLEARLY says. I could give a $hit less about Republicans or any politician’s opinion in this context.
Don’t be such an idiot.

“BTW s3n, if, God forbid, a member of your family was raped…”

sn3 said:

“My, you’re certainly the big thinker aren’t you.”

Well I am certainly humbled by your totally lame come back. You keep saying the AIG bonuses are not performance related. But, they are retention bonuses. Is it your contention that retention is not related to performance? Then you totally misconstrue the issue by comparing auto employees to AIG executives.

s3n said:

“You have no problem rewarding the auto-industry with the same thing for the same mis-management on far greater, longer scale?”

Who in this discussion has advocated or defended bonuses for the auto industry execs?

sn3, you don’t answer points made by others you just repeat your initial, misguided responses or change the argument. Try to respond directly to points made by others and maybe you won’t be the butt of so much criticism and ridicule next time.

CageyCretin dissected your delusional arguments perfectly. Follow his/her example in proper debating and you’ll not look so foolish to so many people.

No kidding. Hence my comparison to the 2% the Republicans cited when trying to derail the stimulus spending.

O.k. You are being dishonest here. You are trying to frame this as having to do with %’s, when it is not about that at all. Drop your 2% and .1% charade — its a load of crap. The republicans complained about earmarks (though practically ALL of them had inserted their OWN). So, in the concept of “not wanting to wastefully spend money, regardless of the amount” we are in agreement. But your use of the hypocritical republicans as a comparison fails you.

Seriously, is there anything I won’t need to explain 3 times here as though this is the slow class?

You are not “explaining” anything — you are presenting false arguments based on false or unconnected premises.

AIG is in the mess they are in because of their management. And you have no problem rewarding them for mis-management?

Nobody said they were being rewarded for performance. But I certainly wouldn’t in response to an article which compares this to the contracts of auto-workers.
You have no problem rewarding the auto-industry with the same thing for the same mis-management on far greater, longer scale?

These checks we are talking about are refered to, by the corporate world, as “bonuses”. Now, a bonus, in the real world of intelligent people, IS always performance related (you do not get a work bonus for doing a lousy job, and even if you do a great job yet the business does poorly then you get no bonus). That is why it is called a “bonus” — something extra as a reward. Of course, the execs call these amounts “bonus” because of some tax-dodge that they are playing with, which, in itself, is immoral and ought to be illegal. It is certainly UNPATRIOTIC to avoid paying taxes, espescially in ‘wartime’.

And you miss the entire point of the comparison the the recently bailed out auto industry. The comparison is NOT contract for contract — it is displaying that “contract” does NOT mean “unchangeable and sacrosanct”, as the execs are arguing, because, AS CVLEARLY DEMONSTRATED WITH THE RECENTLY BAILED OUT AUTO INDUSTRIES CONTRACTS CAN BE REWRITTEN. THAT is the whole point and ONLY point of the comparison. The argument that contracts cannot be re-written, and that “our hands are tied” is a bunch of bull s#it.

What are auto-worker’s contracts other than the most thinly veiled form of government-sponsored unemployment benefits. They’re the 21st century equivalent of the steam engine workers.

How the hell is an EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT a “government-sponsored unemployment benefit”? That is just some lame talking point that you have as you defend the corporate masters who allow you to lick their taint. What the hell are you even talking about? This is a completley moronic statement, and displays that YOU hold a disdain for the average worker.

BTW s3n, if, God forbid, a member of your family was raped…

My, you’re certainly the big thinker aren’t you.

Nice. Hey, s3n you big thinker you, let’s take the same argument in a broader sense. YOU wanted to argue that this is all about a fraction of a %, and that we should be ignoring THIS issue because it is such a small %. So — if you or a loved one (assuming you have any loved ones that you don’t have to inflate) are the victim of a crime that is only a small % of the crimes that are commited, shouldn’t you then ignore that crime? THAT was the point being made, which you choose to ignore because it shoots holes in your % argument, NOT that that is necessary since your % argument is so far off the point that it is stupid.

Nice try to derail the arguments here, and nice of you stopping in so late to respond — figured you’d get the last word, eh? Awww. Maybe if you slip back in here you can still get the last word… maybe….. never know when I might be lurking……

old_norm Says:

In my opinion it is not the percentage of the money going to bonuses that is outrageous but any bonuses being paid at all.

No kidding. Hence my comparison to the 2% the Republicans cited when trying to derail the stimulus spending.

Seriously, is there anything I won’t need to explain 3 times here as though this is the slow class?

AIG is in the mess they are in because of their management. And you have no problem rewarding them for mis-management?

Nobody said they were being rewarded for performance. But I certainly wouldn’t in response to an article which compares this to the contracts of auto-workers.
You have no problem rewarding the auto-industry with the same thing for the same mis-management on far greater, longer scale?

What are auto-worker’s contracts other than the most thinly veiled form of government-sponsored unemployment benefits. They’re the 21st century equivalent of the steam engine workers.

BTW s3n, if, God forbid, a member of your family was raped…

My, you’re certainly the big thinker aren’t you.

pastcaring Says:
Unfortunately for you, you are wrong.

People are outraged over the principle of the matter whether that involves 4 trillion bazillion gazillion dollars or just one damned red cent.

Principle which you seem to lack an understanding for.

And which you seem to be lacking a precedent for.
Care to point me to anyone who backed Republicans citing this exact same principle when objecting to the entire stimulus spending?
I did actually make that comparison for a reason.

Max-1 Says:
s3n,
If I were to sink your portfolio…
… Would you pay me a bonus?

This isn’t about performance. It’s about personnel.
If you can work for anyone other than the basket-case AIG and get a bonus regardless of how bad you fark up, why would anyone work for AIG if they didn’t pay bonuses?

Unlike the auto-workers, people working in finance can actually go work for another viable financial institution.

I have no idea why anyone would highlight auto-workers when complaining about a company you just bailed out. There’s no less viable industry in the US that’s needed more bailouts than the automakers. You should consider yourself lucky you have any employment contract at all.

All this argument over bonuses and outrageous salaries wouldn’t be here if we taxed the crooks ripping off corporate America and shareholders. Obama shoud work with congress to raise marginal tax rates on all incomes over $1.0 million to 80%!

And just don’t stop at the big salaries. Also tax their short term profits (trading derivatives all day) at 90%. Make it absolutely un-economical to make such short term money.

TAXES ARE THE BEST WAY TO STOP THIS BEHAVIOUR

I believe these crooks are undermining and marginalizing President Obama initiatives.

Do what is needed to save our money and to avoid a depression.
repugs can call it what they want.

Our government should take over immediately. These crooks need a respected financial model and that should come from the government. AIG+arrogance+greed+lies=crooks.

aig is still partying while we sacrifice.

aig is laughing all the way to their bank.

Are all these crooks mini-madoff?

Say bye bye repugs. This isn’t a joke.

Furthermore, what does this say of the Obama Administration if the Huffington Post is correct? If the federal government is essentially the majority shareholder, does that not make Obama an enabler? Or is the Huff Post lying?

UAW contracts are for a living wage

AIG bonuses needed to keep the “best and brightest”

see the difference?

Obviously the bonuses can’t possibly be abrogated because the obscenely wealthy then might not be able to live the lifestyle they so richly deserve. UAW commoners paying the rent and putting food on the table – no comparison.

It’s kind of hard to be outraged about how AIG spend the money we gave them because they haven’t yet told us much about what they did with it. When that happens, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more outrage going on.

I agree with Zooey. We need to Nationalize AIG, fire it’s corporate officers, get the bonuses back and then break up the company to re-sell.

We have to do something to regulate corporations in this country so that we are never again told “it’s too big to fail”.

Well, how could I make it any clearer?
You understood the numbers, right? That we’re talking about being outraged over how 0.1% of this money is spent while having no opinion about the 99.9% of $170 billion dollars.
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Unfortunately for you, you are wrong.

People are outraged over the principle of the matter whether that involves 4 trillion bazillion gazillion dollars or just one damned red cent.

Principle which you seem to lack an understanding for.