Anyone Have Any Facts?

[Road_Hog]

Regarding the AIG Bonus payout, does anyone know what division(s) of the company is being paid out?

Everyone is freaking out whereas these bonuses may be for legitimate profitable business.

If there's ever a reason the government shouldn't be involved in running business, this is it.  The government is the shareholder, yet they are griping at management as if they have no part.  Typical politics. 

[SultanofSwine]

My understanding is a significant amount was for folks in the financial products group otherwise known as the knuckleheads that sank the ship. But I havent followed it all that closely so I maybe misinformed.

[Ash]

AIG paid 73 employees bonuses of $1 million or more; 11 of whom are no longer there, according to NY Atty. Gen. Cuomo.

From CNN.COM front page.
The bonuses were in the financial products group. Specifically to the folks that designed all the derivatives that got AIG into this mess.

Regarding the whole bailout of AIG (which is in effect a bailout of the companies that AIG bet against).

Has noone ever heard of counter-party risk?

[hawgbawb]

This so sucks. We are essentially paying to prop up a bankrupt insurance company and their fat cats (that made a living by underwriting policies that guaranteed a bunch of casino shysters that they wouldn't get caught or lose money) because the insurer has the world economy by the gonads.

It's like a high stakes game of chicken, where heads they win and tails we lose.

[vandybuff]

But where there are lemons, there is also lemonade:  someone at the IRS is in nirvana at the thought of $1 million bonus paid Wednesday and a $1 million tax on that bonus collected Friday!

btw good story in the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123725551430050865.html

[hawg23]

Saw a story on the esteemed Chris Dodd. Apparantly he helped pass legislation in the stimulus bill PROTECTING bonus monies paid to employees of such firms. Now he is having a change of heart. (still got a sweetheart mortgage deal though)

http://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-try-pinning-aig-fiasco-on-sen-chris-dodd-2009-3

Freaking politicians too one thing..polls change then want to do another..makes me siiiick

[online-with-swine]

I heard on one of the political talk shows that we may have a problem when it comes to taxing these bonuses because a sizable lot of them were for employees who worked in the London branch.

I also heard another issue with the bonuses were that if AIG did not pay them then they would be open for litigation by those employees.  Of course this could be them covering their asses at this time.

[vandybuff]

I heard on one of the political talk shows that we may have a problem when it comes to taxing these bonuses because a sizable lot of them were for employees who worked in the London branch.

I also heard another issue with the bonuses were that if AIG did not pay them then they would be open for litigation by those employees.  Of course this could be them covering their asses at this time.

I do not doubt what you heard, but does that not merely reconfirm 'the rush for the soundbite' by all too many of our politicians?  Think of it - if you give the United Way a dollar and then they give the Boy Scouts that dollar and someday you become disenchanted with the United Way, do you continue to give UW money while trying to retrieve the same money from the scouts? 
The collective intelligence of our leadership is becoming very, very frightening to me - I honestly wish that they have lied to us rather than think they - and the electorate - think in such 'whack-a-mole' logic.

[SultanofSwine]

wishful thinking vandy

[online-with-swine]

It would be nice if politicians would quit being politicans for a little bit, stand up and be leaders.  Instead of continually running for office and letting popularity and the big money contributors like AIG guide their decisions, they need to do what is right for the country.  Sure every company and individual wants a hand out, who would't want free money.  But is that the right thing to do for our country?

[vandybuff]

It would be nice if politicians would quit being politicans for a little bit, stand up and be leaders.

Which is my greatest fear -- I am coming to think that they are like the kids that faked their way through high school, college, grad school, their job(s) ... and basically never understand much of anything! 
And while waving their arms until they risk rotator cuff damage over a bonus of a company that is de facto already nationalized is entertaining television, what happens when the topic is of much more serious nature?  Sadly, most probably the same.

[hawgbawb]

Saw a story on the esteemed Chris Dodd. Apparantly he helped pass legislation in the stimulus bill PROTECTING bonus monies paid to employees of such firms. Now he is having a change of heart. (still got a sweetheart mortgage deal though)

http://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-try-pinning-aig-fiasco-on-sen-chris-dodd-2009-3

Freaking politicians too one thing..polls change then want to do another..makes me siiiick

For the sake of fairness, it should be pointed out that Dodd's insertion was designed to PREVENT bonuses to company execs at corporations taking taxpayer bailout money.  The problem was that it exempted existing contracts.  The question is "do we want to arbitrarily cancel existing business contracts?"   If the government gets into that mode, it will set a bad precedent.