Why the fuss over the AIG exec bonuses?
 

i dont know why everyones making such a big deal out of it. execs at big companies can get paid a lot of money, thats why people go to school and work hard so they can get to that level.

and a deal is a deal, if they made an agreement to pay them, then its a contract and you have to deal with it. If the governments is pissed about that, they should have done their due diligence before they gave them the loan, im sure that was disclosed under the accounting liabilities.

Because people are idiots and can't comprehend the simplest things?

We've opened the moral hazard door and now its going to be impossible to close, if only I can find a high paying job that guarantees me a bonus if I make them go bankrupt

are you serious?

these assholes bankrupted one of the worlds largest companies.... they are FAR from "great" businessmen, and the current state of their company ought to spell out how well they worked to "earn" those bonuses paid to them. coupled with the fact that its being paid out of money loaned to them in kind from the american taxpayers.

AIG execs didnt do their own due diligence in buying up all the shit assets they did, so why should they expect the government to do them any better then they did their investors?

this is like giving a bus driver a bonus after he crashs a bus and kills passengers, simply because you told him you would. sorry but sometimes when you fuck up real bad... all bets are off.

I agree with count of monte cristo, but not in as cavalier a way.

I don't think that they "deserve" any bonuses, I just know that without them they would walk and we'd be worse off.

The govt is trying to wind AIG down and sell off the pieces. In order to do that you need qualified people there, people who know what's going on and who know where all the bodies are buried.
So you're asking people, highly educated and qualified people, to continue working for a company that they know won't exist very soon, instead of leaving and finding another job ASAP.

The only way to get them to stay is with these "retention bonuses"

If they all walk, and AIG goes bankrupt, it'll be Lehman Bros all over again, but at a multiple of at least 3, if not a multiple of 10.

You can either eat a shit sandwich, or swim in a shit tidal wave. :2 cents:

When they are using taxpayer money to pay those bonuses? That's different.

Although I still fail to see how or why companies pay these enormous bonuses as the company is nose diving into the ground. They're not the first.

While I agree with your sentiment and do not think these execs should be paid, you need to realize these are NOT performance bonuses, they are retention bonuses

XonDemand
 

fuss over AIG bonus is that they did not include the government in this payout...
it's simple AIG pays bonus and pays some money back from to the gov stim. no problem...

but because AIG paid employee bonus without paying the gov back first...lol

its not one person that runs aig, its thousands. all of the the people that got bonuses could have been working 100 hours a week, making a ton of $$ for the company, and minimized AIGs losses.

its not a matter of being a great businessman, its an agreement where, you do this, in exchange for this.

You need to read a bit more to understand what went on.

Thats the problem.. people see "BONUSES" and theink "OMG THATS MY TAX MONEY" and they completely ignore the reality of the situation.

the bonuses are retention bonuses so the recipients don't leave with their client lists. the bonus is not tied to performance in any way.

moreover, the bonus recipients are all from the cds trading wing of aig, the ones responsible for the epic fail.

this is incorrect infos.

if they were retention bonuses why did 11 people that got bonuses leave? if i was giving retention bonuses out, id want something in the contract that prevents them from leaving for a period of time.

and they may be in the trading wing, but if i have a sales team, a few of them are going to be amazing sellers and few shitty ones, and everything in between. just because the division as a whole did poorly does not mean there were not people that contributed significantly to achieving its goals, and get rewarded as such.

i'm not here to argue, you asked what i wrongly assumed to be an genuine question, not one to set up an argument with someone who simply posts in your thread.

i provided you with facts, you can assume what you want or you can realize cds trades are incredibly complex deals and also research more about the actual details on those bonuses and that wing of iag.

as for the 11 who left, you would have to ask them why the left, not an anon poster on an adult message board such as myself.

fair enough, thanks for your post :thumbsup

i naturally like to argue :)

A large number of the people receiving the bonuses are no longer even with the company. This is more like hush money than it is retention money.

All of this shit is just to give the people something to direct their anger at. Much like Madoff. There's actually an admitted 50 trillion dollars lost around the world in the past 6 months to a year and they serve up one guy who lost $50 billion. It's all a fucking calm the sheep reality TV program.

had AIG actually fallen these execs would of gotten nothing...period...WE the taxpayer are bailing these asshats out, WE indeed paid for these "bonuses" or "retention pay" ...yes WE did....dont get fooled by the sly back talking or phrases....WE the american people bailed out a failing company that these "brilliant" people drove into the ground....and to claim that this was so they wouldnt leave...let them go...they obviosly are not the sharpest knife in the drawer..and to you honestly think they will tell you all the hidden stuff...please, they are going to try and cover their asses as much as possible...and lets not forget that a very big chunk of this money went to other establishments the got bail out money or oversea accounts...

AIG wouldnt of had any money to pay for these so called retention bonuses if it were not for the tax payers....

we need to stop bailing everyone out because noone is going to bail YOU out when you are broke....

if you create a business and it fails, guess what...nobody is there to just say, well you tried, well bail out of with your neighbors money and call it even...

let it all crumble...we as a human society worldwide will bounce back...

Many walked the day after they got their bonus.

Source: Donald Trump

Exactly!

Maybe if those rat bastards were offered a choice of the "bonus" they've really earned...

http://www.therealcuba.com/Fusilamiento1XY.JPG

Or sticking around long enough to help clean up the mess things might go better :thumbsup

It's just smoke in mirrors like always.

The government is trying to play good cop, making a stink over a small matter to make it look like they're being responsible.

These bonuses in question are a whopping 0.002% of the public money that's been given to AIG.

These congressman are really micro-managers eh? I mean taking care of all that money, to the last 0.002%!!!!

Fuckin joke. ;)

More to this story thats gonna come out :)

And to the guys who have left AIG.... are they retention bonuses to them too?

The word retention is being mistaken too.

They "retained" some of their top employees so they would finish their jobs, instead of them all leaving as a herd when the company was clearly going down a mountain on a bicycle with no brakes. By promising them a bonus, they agreed to stay on until their job was complete.

It's not that the employees were going to stay indefinitely, people are mixing that up.

Think of it like this. You're building a big home, the contractors are all there working. Then a hurricane hits, and they're like fuck this, the whole job has changed, and we have other shit to worry about now.. So you promise them a bonus to stay and finish the home.. Once the home is finished, they leave..

In this case "completion" is not AIG back on its feet and the government paid back, it's simply whatever their job was to mitigate damages to AIG etc, they completed their portion, and now it's over.

Good.

And now it's time that they each collected their well earned bonus :)

http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/uploads/1/ins1_21.jpg

by the way, they knew of the bonuses in nov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/..._did_they_know

That pretty much covers it and some in the government have admitted it.

The global economy can't afford for AIG to fold, never mind the USA.

Yes they are retention bonuses.

Bonuses aren't paid in advance, they are paid after the fact.

These people stayed until this point, instead of bailing when the shit hit the fan awhile ago, and now they're getting paid for it.

I guess the big problem is the word "bonus".

Bonus has become interchangeable with salary, benefits, or really any type of compensation on Wall Street.....I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm just pointing out that's the way it's been for awhile now.

I don't imagine there would be this outrage if the public found out what AIG spent on employee health benefits last year, or what it's monthly nut is for employee salaries, or IT, or whatever.
The word "bonus" just seems to hit a nerve with people.

You are right. The word "bonus" in regards to executive pay and taxation issues compared to the word "bonus" for normal people are two different things. Back in 93 Clinton tried to curb executive pay by only allowing executive compensation over a million dollars to be written off by the company if it was distributed as a "bonus".

So working within the confines of the law, clever companies started paying "bonuses" for things such as "making work a fun place", or "achieving personal commitments", or "banging more than 3 secretaries a year".

The word "bonus" has no relevance to how a company or division performs, only to how a corporation can deduct executive compensation under the current tax law.