If the auto companies can renegotiate their contracts, so can AIG. Do they honestly think their employees will walk in this environment? HA! I think not. I call 110% bullshit on AIG.
Zorba
· 8 months ago
Oh, well, those renegotiated contracts were for the workers, not executives. Obviously, executives are too important to be asked (or forced, as the union workers were) to renegotiate contracts. (Where are the Republicans who were screaming about the excessive pay and benefits of Union auto workers, by the way?)
bob_h
· 8 months ago
The executives are presumably threatening to walk, but call their bluff. I know that the insurance capitol, Hartford, is absolutely devastated, and they are not going there.
Older_Wiser
· 8 months ago
Even if they emptied out the US Treasury, it wouldn't be enough to fix AIG for they are loaded with collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps. Take over AIG completely and sort it out as best as possible. Let the execs walk, don't set a precedent for the greedy and incompetent and for chrissakes, develop regulations that will ensure this never happens again (and I don't mean something that will protect them, and not the public). Every new product thought up by these Wall St. yahoos should be strictly regulated and traded under sunshine laws.
Next, change regulations on ALL insurance companies. I understand the insurance industry may be the next shoe to drop. These companies are taking risks that have nothing to do with the insurance they offer the public.
.
Wile E. Coyote
· 8 months ago
At this point I'm waiting for the tipping point scandal that will finally send the American taxpayer into the streets. Outrage after outrage keeps coming down the pike. There is more protest against the judges' decisions on American Idol than there is against this corporate highway robbery. What will it take? When will there be enough pain to make America wake up, get out of the TV room, and hit the streets? Soon I hope to have an answer to this question....
Older_Wiser
· 8 months ago
Perhaps when their cable or satellite is disconnected for non-payment?
Harmonika
· 8 months ago
So this is how it works?
We keep handing them financial bailouts, and the bankers just pocket the money and create nothing for it? Then we give them yet more money, they distribute the wealth among their friends, then come BACK for another bailout?
Do we keep doing this, trusting that they will do what they promised to do with the money, until we finally create a class of people so filthy rich and entitled that they honor no rules or laws?
Yes; by all means --- Let's keep giving out all that bailout money HOPING they finally do what's right...
sittenpretty
· 8 months ago
take the money back,American public was duped,LET THEM GO BANKRUPT,then theirCONTRACTUAL agreements would be CRAP,LIKE THEIR PAPER
dula
· 8 months ago
A Centrist like Obama will never hold the Financial Industry accountable...that would be too radical. Considering his economic appointees and the lack of oversight, he's too cowardly to do what needs to be done.
Wesinoregon
· 8 months ago
Surely this isn't the ONLY insurance co. in the world. Close it down and people will just get their insurance somewhere else. The workers can go work at the over-amount of new business this will create at the other companies And best of all, the execs are the ones without money or jobs. They can live off their cash robberies of the public.
sittenpretty
· 8 months ago
we must fax our outrage straight to the white house,every American gets a few hundred bucks(CRUMBS) while this INSURANCE MAFIA robs us blind....FAX,FAX,FAX...just say NO
tbhull
· 8 months ago
Faxes my ass. Something more, much more is needed to change this.
timncguy
· 8 months ago
according to news reports today, these bonuses are contractural obligations that were set in place before the economic crisis. The bonuses were written in these employees contracts as retention bonuses, not performance bonuses. And, if AIG doesn't pay the contractural obligations, the employees could sue them for even MORE. Apparently the government has reviewed these contracts and come to the conclusion that it would be even more costly to try to revise the contracts now than to just pay the contractural obligations.
Older_Wiser
· 8 months ago
That is such BS. Contracts are broken every day. Companies won't hesitate to break union contracts, so why should executives' contracts be any different? Let them sue--they'll be up against the taxpayers when they do, because the taxpayers now own a big piece of AIG.
How many ordinary workers win against companies when they are fired for "cause" (just because you don't have an elaborate "contract" doesn't mean you don't have one, even if it's oral). These bastards allowed what happened to AIG to happen, thereby breaking their contracts, as far as I'm concerned.
jgm22
· 8 months ago
implement an emergency TARP tax rate at say 97.0% then. they get paid, but the tax payers get the money back by taxing them higher.
tbhull
· 8 months ago
Let them sue and then the government will flush this fucker down bankruptcy's toilet. How much money will these sue happy pigs get in bankruptcy? Not a fucking dime.
atlliberal
· 8 months ago
This is why bankrupcy should be an option when companies need so much money. If they went bankrupt, all of their contracts would be voided. The exdecutives would lose their jobs and they could start over.
ComradeRutherford
· 8 months ago
Since bonuses are rewards for doing a good job and AIG is handing out bonuses after LOSING $61.7B, then losing that money must have been what AIG had intended all along. They are simply rewarding their executives for doing exactly what they meant to do - successfully running the company into the ground.
Geithner is handing AIG billions of dollars in welfare to the Republican welfare queens for doing exactly what AIG intended to do all along: destroy the US economy.
What's the big surprise here? The far-right has been working feverishly to bring about the impoverishment of the American middle-class for decades, Obama' Administration is simply carrying on that work because they are all right-of-center Republicans.
I looked at Obama's voting record and saw how he sold out his Democratic roots as Senator and I knew two years ago that he's just another Republican operative masquerading as a Democrat - just like Pelosi and Reid. And this welfare-for-the-obscenely-wealthy scheme is merely proof of that assertion.
No one seriously thought Obama was a Real Democrat, did they? Goodness no! Real Democrats, like Cynthia McKinney are hounded out of office by the Democratic Leadership and are called 'whack-jobs' by certain 'liberals' in the New Media.
foxy
· 8 months ago
They don't care the pigs they are....
Indigo
· 8 months ago
Welcome to the paradigm shift that didn't.
tbhull
· 8 months ago
This is the shit paradigm.
John
· 8 months ago
How much more outrageous do things have to get before we the people say enough? Why does this administration as well as Congress continue to look the other way while hard working people are losing their homes and being reduced to living in tent cities while these scumbags who broke the system are continually rewarded for destroying their companies? C'mon President Obama, grow a pair and put a stop to this now before we the people start taking to the streets and begin our second revolution. This is wrong Mr. President, but the best you can say is that we have to look forward? Good enough, but you have to begin to go after people who are destroying our country. No wonder the Chinese are worried about their trillion dollar investment. If I were your biggest lien holder, I'd be worried to. Rather than paying out 165 million in bonuses, maybe you might want to use those funds to reduce the national debt.
tbhull
· 8 months ago
When taxpayers voluntarily take a few months off work to shut off money to DC. What will the China master do, force the salves feeding this corrupt machine back to work?
rexkc
· 8 months ago
How did they get more TARP money without agreeing to controls on executive payouts? Who is managing this?
tbhull
· 8 months ago
Congress will bitch and moan, all while knowing full well nothing will happen and the theft of taxpayer dollars will continue to the benefit of wealth. It appears increasingly likely more forceful actions on a large scale to make this stop, but I wager nothing gets done.
Maybe taxpayers should show up at the gated neighborhoods of these executives and politely request the money back.
Why not post the names and addreses of those receiving the bonuses?
Why not pass legislation that retroactively imposes a 100% excise tax on any amount received from a TARP in exess of let's say $250,000 in lieu of an income tax.
burro
· 8 months ago
Geithner has been such a firebrand, standing up for the American investor who has lost their retirement plans. - Chris
I want to cut Obama slack and give him the benefit of the doubt. But on the most important issue he has before him, he chose a weak and untrustworthy, (by the taxpayer anyway), shill for CorpCo. to run his economic team. And I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't some kind of convenience that Geithner is working with a skeleton staff. Certainly makes it hard to get much done and there isn't as much opportunity for push back or leaking.
We are still not being well served by our gov't.
John
· 8 months ago
The weather is warming and so are tempers. Have we reached a flash point yet? Are you pissed off enough to get off your ass and march on Washington and Wall Street and tell these people we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore?
jeffg166
· 8 months ago
I'd like to see these Wall Street Welfare Queens walk. That would be the day.
monopole
· 8 months ago
Bankruptcy or Nationalization would abrogate these contracts.
jaxon
· 8 months ago
This is sick. Why in the world are we helping these companies that keep sending millions to people who do not know how to run a company? They cry yet get paid millions on the "average joes" taxes. Furthermore, I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg. Look what Enterprise rent-a-car did to get bailout funds:
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the UAW forced to renegotiate their contract before the auto industry got bail out money? And we let these amoral financial terrorists just skate with billions? Is this correct?
Nationalize these institutions and throw these financial cancers on to the streets.
Skepticat
· 8 months ago
Let them walk? MAKE them walk.
John
· 8 months ago
it's time to either March on Washington and and Wall Street. At the least have a national work stoppage or just stop paying taxes. If this is the way our government is governing then throw the bums out if not by the vote, then by force. This is absolutely disgusting. Any such contractual obligations should be broken. The company should be fully nationalized and the people who brought it to its knees, along with the economy as a whole, by manufacturing derivative contracts and obligations that the company lacked the capital to meet, should be put in jail. In fact, I would recommend a show trial of sorts in the name of public catharsis. These people should be stripped of their titles and wealth and punished for their reckless behavior. Who cares about contractual obligations? They trampled the spirit of the law. When you are too big to fail, as AIG obviously is, then you have to abide by a standard of behavior that is far above the one that was followed by its executives. People are angry, and AIG is making a BIG mistake by lavishly rewarding its executives. If the best that Obama can do is to trot out Larry Summers and Bennie Bernanke on 60 minutes this evening, then Mr. President, you will be a one term wonder. Change we can believe in?!?!? Seems the more things change, the more the corrupt take advantage of we the US taxpayers. The “let them eat cake” crowd has had it. Mr. President, you say we’re all going to have to sacrifice. So far I only see this happening to the tax payer many who now are setting up tent cities while the fat cats live on their caviar driven bonuses. Enough is enough!
Walt
· 8 months ago
Bullshit. Congress should insist that as the 80% shareholder that be put into reorganization under the bankrupcy laws. Void the employment agreements with the fools who destroyed the company and make the counterparties file claims in bankruptcy court to show who they are.
Bonuses? I don't think so. The company entered into contracts under which they did not have the means to perform. That's fraud, so file fraud charges against the CEO, Board of Directors and every employee who was ever paid more than $250K, then use RICO laws to seize sieze their bank accounts, their homes, their cars, and every asset they own.
The Obama administration, the US Congress, and the US taxpayers are being played for fools. These people have demonstrated repeatedly that their word is worth nothing, so why would we listen to their promises to try to steal less for their employees a year from now? Shut it down and start over with people who are not greed-intoxicated pathological liars and criminals.
pdxprobert
· 8 months ago
I thought bonus income was for exceeding performance expectations, or at least minimally meeting goals... How can an organization require bail out funds and still say some employees are due a contracted bonus? If I were in congress, I'd demand to see those contracts and the terms that bonus income would be applicable... otherwise, all this outrage on the part of our elected officials is just feigned... don't many of our elected officials take donations from these very same corporations that received bail out funds? Ive heard that many of these financial institutions are using TARP funds to pay for powerful lawyers to protect them as Unions and other investors of these CDO's begin litigation to recover their losses...
cab02149
· 8 months ago
This is a situation which clearly is a threat to national security and the players should be treated accordingly. Try them under the RICO statutes. Because freaks like this can fuck things up for an entire nation if not the world, they must not be allowed their freedom. In a generation or two this collapse will repeat itself all over again, with a new generation of freshly minted financial wizards. Who doubts that? This country is a farce. So willing to make innocent lives miserable for some vague "principal" called "free enterprise"? Pure bullshit. What a stupid nation we are. What assholes we are if we do not exact a high price for the damage done to our innocent lives by people who considered their work to be more important than government, more powerful than government, more influential than government. Find the major players. Toss them in jail and throw away the key.
gymnjim
· 8 months ago
This is why the should have been forced through bankruptcy. The contracts would be toast.
paulbe
· 8 months ago
They will never be forced through bankruptcy as long as they have your future labor and taxes to keep them afloat. It used to be called looting. Now its called bailout. There's a Change You Can Believe In.
Natt
· 8 months ago
NOT ANOTHER RED CENT FOR AIG!!!!
I used to have a couple of polices and unit trust investments with AIG - till they screwed me over and I lost 40% of my portfolio, and only decided to inform me after I questioned them about it. This is AIG honesty for you. And now THIS. Well AIG deserves to tank. Nevermind the economy - AIG's bailout has much greater impact on the federal budget than keeping it around. Unless the way AIG is still being run changes drastically. Frankly I don't believe an industry's corporate culture can change overnight - be it AIG, Citi, BoA, or any other Fat Cat Corp. I just hope Obama's got the balls to chase these cats up the hill and over the cliff. Like he PROMISED.
All Comments
Next, change regulations on ALL insurance companies. I understand the insurance industry may be the next shoe to drop. These companies are taking risks that have nothing to do with the insurance they offer the public.
.
We keep handing them financial bailouts, and the bankers just pocket the money and create nothing for it?
Then we give them yet more money, they distribute the wealth among their friends, then come BACK
for another bailout?
Do we keep doing this, trusting that they will do what they promised to do with the money, until we
finally create a class of people so filthy rich and entitled that they honor no rules or laws?
Yes; by all means --- Let's keep giving out all that bailout money HOPING they finally do what's right...
How many ordinary workers win against companies when they are fired for "cause" (just because you don't have an elaborate "contract" doesn't mean you don't have one, even if it's oral). These bastards allowed what happened to AIG to happen, thereby breaking their contracts, as far as I'm concerned.
Geithner is handing AIG billions of dollars in welfare to the Republican welfare queens for doing exactly what AIG intended to do all along: destroy the US economy.
What's the big surprise here? The far-right has been working feverishly to bring about the impoverishment of the American middle-class for decades, Obama' Administration is simply carrying on that work because they are all right-of-center Republicans.
I looked at Obama's voting record and saw how he sold out his Democratic roots as Senator and I knew two years ago that he's just another Republican operative masquerading as a Democrat - just like Pelosi and Reid. And this welfare-for-the-obscenely-wealthy scheme is merely proof of that assertion.
No one seriously thought Obama was a Real Democrat, did they? Goodness no! Real Democrats, like Cynthia McKinney are hounded out of office by the Democratic Leadership and are called 'whack-jobs' by certain 'liberals' in the New Media.
C'mon President Obama, grow a pair and put a stop to this now before we the people start taking to the streets and begin our second revolution. This is wrong Mr. President, but the best you can say is that we have to look forward? Good enough, but you have to begin to go after people who are destroying our country. No wonder the Chinese are worried about their trillion dollar investment. If I were your biggest lien holder, I'd be worried to. Rather than paying out 165 million in bonuses, maybe you might want to use those funds to reduce the national debt.
Maybe taxpayers should show up at the gated neighborhoods of these executives and politely request the money back.
Why not post the names and addreses of those receiving the bonuses?
Why not pass legislation that retroactively imposes a 100% excise tax on any amount received from a TARP in exess of let's say $250,000 in lieu of an income tax.
I want to cut Obama slack and give him the benefit of the doubt. But on the most important issue he has before him, he chose a weak and untrustworthy, (by the taxpayer anyway), shill for CorpCo. to run his economic team. And I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't some kind of convenience that Geithner is working with a skeleton staff. Certainly makes it hard to get much done and there isn't as much opportunity for push back or leaking.
We are still not being well served by our gov't.
http://www.butasforme.com/2009/02/25/alert-enterprise-rent-a-car-may-have-fired-employees-as-fake-evidence-when-lobbing-for-bailout-money/
Nationalize these institutions and throw these financial cancers on to the streets.
This is absolutely disgusting. Any such contractual obligations should be broken. The company should be fully nationalized and the people who brought it to its knees, along with the economy as a whole, by manufacturing derivative contracts and obligations that the company lacked the capital to meet, should be put in jail. In fact, I would recommend a show trial of sorts in the name of public catharsis. These people should be stripped of their titles and wealth and punished for their reckless behavior. Who cares about contractual obligations? They trampled the spirit of the law. When you are too big to fail, as AIG obviously is, then you have to abide by a standard of behavior that is far above the one that was followed by its executives. People are angry, and AIG is making a BIG mistake by lavishly rewarding its executives.
If the best that Obama can do is to trot out Larry Summers and Bennie Bernanke on 60 minutes this evening, then Mr. President, you will be a one term wonder. Change we can believe in?!?!? Seems the more things change, the more the corrupt take advantage of we the US taxpayers. The “let them eat cake” crowd has had it. Mr. President, you say we’re all going to have to sacrifice. So far I only see this happening to the tax payer many who now are setting up tent cities while the fat cats live on their caviar driven bonuses. Enough is enough!
Bonuses? I don't think so. The company entered into contracts under which they did not have the means to perform. That's fraud, so file fraud charges against the CEO, Board of Directors and every employee who was ever paid more than $250K, then use RICO laws to seize sieze their bank accounts, their homes, their cars, and every asset they own.
The Obama administration, the US Congress, and the US taxpayers are being played for fools. These people have demonstrated repeatedly that their word is worth nothing, so why would we listen to their promises to try to steal less for their employees a year from now? Shut it down and start over with people who are not greed-intoxicated pathological liars and criminals.
I used to have a couple of polices and unit trust investments with AIG - till they screwed me over and I lost 40% of my portfolio, and only decided to inform me after I questioned them about it. This is AIG honesty for you. And now THIS. Well AIG deserves to tank. Nevermind the economy - AIG's bailout has much greater impact on the federal budget than keeping it around. Unless the way AIG is still being run changes drastically. Frankly I don't believe an industry's corporate culture can change overnight - be it AIG, Citi, BoA, or any other Fat Cat Corp. I just hope Obama's got the balls to chase these cats up the hill and over the cliff. Like he PROMISED.