A.I.G....unfreakinreal

[GPK]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/bu...G.html?_r=1&hp

[ArlJim78]

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,”

how comforting that they have the top talent. they set the record for largest loss in corporate history, how much more would they have lost if they didn't have the top talent?

[Danzig]

if the best and brightest drove them to need a bailout, are they sure they're the best and brightest? and while on the subject, just where the eff are the 'best and brightest' going to get employment if they leave due to 'arbitrary' adjustments? not exactly an employees market right now.

Originally Posted by Danzig

if the best and brightest drove them to need a bailout, are they sure they're the best and brightest? and while on the subject, just where the eff are the 'best and brightest' going to get employment if they leave due to 'arbitrary' adjustments? not exactly an employees market right now.

effin A.

[Smooth Operator]

If this was a Chinese company these LOSERS would've been staring down the barrel of an assault rifle months ago.

But here in this country we give them 'retention pay'.

Originally Posted by Danzig

not exactly an employees market right now.

Maybe Lehman Brothers needs some help.

[ddthetide]

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightesttalent"

how comforting that they have the top talent. they set the record for largest loss in corporate history, how much more would they have lost if they didn't have the top talent?

code for swindlers and cheats ??

[The Indomitable DrugS]

You ever see those hunting shows they put on the station next to TVG on Direct TV?

Basically - a bunch of hicks are on camera hiding in the woods and talking quiet - looking for an animal to shoot at. After they snipe it - they go rub it's fur and say "thank you Jesus" and stuff like that.

How's about giving the animals a break and just putting businessmen on that show? The AIG douchebags can be the first to get sniped off in the woods by hicks.

Seeing a hick in camo blast a corporate exec and say "thanks Jesus!" would be must see tv.

[wiphan]

Really

I am sure when the government bailed out AIG that they knew exactly what was still left to pay. These were contracts already in place prior to anything happening. The government knew this or at least should have known it when it took an ownership stake in AIG. This is just a PR move by the administration to look better. Do you really think Obama and the administration didn't know what the compensation plans were of the current employees of AIG? If your answer is no, then we have a bigger problem on our hands because we are spending billions and billions of $ on things we know nothing about. On the surface it looks bad, but if I had a contract with my company and my performance in that company was superior and I deserved a bonus based on my current contract than I would expect to receive it. If someone buys the yankees, they still have to pay A-rod, etc. They have to deal with the contracts that are in place, unless they renogiate them. It definitely looks bad, but you have to see reality as well. It is very easy to bash big business and now it seems comon place that we are becoming a society that wants to tell everyone what they should and shouldn't make.

[hi_im_god]

what confuses me is how a payment that a company is obligated to pay an employee can be called a performance bonus.

if there's a contract to pay a specific amount, isn't it just delayed compensation unrelated to performance?

[alysheba4]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

You ever see those hunting shows they put on the station next to TVG on Direct TV?

Basically - a bunch of hicks are on camera hiding in the woods and talking quiet - looking for an animal to shoot at. After they snipe it - they go rub it's fur and say "thank you Jesus" and stuff like that.

How's about giving the animals a break and just putting businessmen on that show? The AIG douchebags can be the first to get sniped off in the woods by hicks.

Seeing a hick in camo blast a corporate exec and say "thanks Jesus!" would be must see tv.

.......would be the highest rated show in the history of " cable " television.......would have to be handguns, the rifles those hicks use have scopes which would limit the show to about 3 mins.

Originally Posted by wiphan

Really

I am sure when the government bailed out AIG that they knew exactly what was still left to pay. These were contracts already in place prior to anything happening. The government knew this or at least should have known it when it took an ownership stake in AIG. This is just a PR move by the administration to look better. Do you really think Obama and the administration didn't know what the compensation plans were of the current employees of AIG? If your answer is no, then we have a bigger problem on our hands because we are spending billions and billions of $ on things we know nothing about. On the surface it looks bad, but if I had a contract with my company and my performance in that company was superior and I deserved a bonus based on my current contract than I would expect to receive it. If someone buys the yankees, they still have to pay A-rod, etc. They have to deal with the contracts that are in place, unless they renogiate them. It definitely looks bad, but you have to see reality as well. It is very easy to bash big business and now it seems comon place that we are becoming a society that wants to tell everyone what they should and shouldn't make.

Oh now we're getting somewhere. The government didn't know. You know why? Because the government is just as incompetent as AIG. Throw in CITI and you have the three stooges.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by wiphan

On the surface it looks bad, but if I had a contract with my company and my performance in that company was superior and I deserved a bonus based on my current contract than I would expect to receive it.

For a bonus ... they deserve to die an undignified death ... hiding under rocks in the woods like hunted animals ... just waiting for Ted Nugent to snipe them. I say that based on performance of course.

Originally Posted by wiphan

If someone buys the yankees, they still have to pay A-rod, etc.

A-Rod? Yankees? More like Duante Culpepper and the Lions at best!

I have more respect for 95% of the people in prison in this country.

Originally Posted by wiphan

They have to deal with the contracts that are in place, unless they renogiate them.

They should have never been bailed out by taxpayers in the first place. Had bankrupcy happened - wouldn't these contracts have been discarded?

It is very easy to bash big business

I like how the democrats like to point out "instead of spending money building roads, schools, and briges and hiring police in Iraq ... we could have spent that money here."

The way I see it - instead of dropping perfectly good bombs on buildings in Iraq - we could have saved them and dropped them on Wall Street and big corporations.

Instead of sending so called "terrorists" to isolated prisons and torturing them - we could have instead done the same thing to CEO's here. And I mean real torture ... not small stuff like waterboarding - but hard stuff like having every post Sumitas has ever made read to them repeatedly through a bull horn.

These guys at AIG are giving us the finger and saying "keep the cash coming. Baby needs a new walk in closet filled with shoes."

If I was in charge - I would look at each individual in "big business" and confiscate every single dollar they have if I deem them to be unsavory people. I would strip them of citizenship - and I would have them all rounded up and sent to Cuba in retaliation of Castro dropping the dregs of his socitey on us decades ago.

They would be treated kindly compared to what I would do with most from the Bush Adminstartion. Dangling decorations for lamp posts they would be.

Laws and constitution be damned. Nothing new there.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cardus

A part of AIG's demise was the firing of company founder "Hank" Greenberg by a grandstanding former New York State Attorney General: Eliot Spitzer.

I'd have an easier time believing that the CEO Hank Greenberg could hit 58 home runs in an MLB season - then I would believing that he also isn't a crook.

For a sex addled wreck - Spitzer sure got a lot done as a politican.

As president - my hardline extremist anti-business agenda probably wouldn't get off the ground because I'd spend all day betting horses ... while somehow finding time to mix in a little internet porn - and also somehow manage to satisfy my horsey board obsession and get my daily masturbation fix.

[ArlJim78]

the hypocrisy is running really deep on this, they all knew, or should have known about the bonuses.

Chris Dodd now wants to tax away the bonuses when he himself put in an ammendment into the stimulus bill that specifically protected those contracts.

i guess actually reading the bill before you sign it might not be such a bad idea after all. Congress has already debated this relatively meager issue much more than the stimulus bill which is roughly a 5,000 times larger blow to the taxpayer.

and then there is the Republican senator who said those guys should take a deep bow and commit suicide. Grassley should be taken away in a straightjacket.


AIG should use the Obama's earmark defense.
"Oh those contracts are last years business, we've got to move forward now. We'll make sure it doesn't happen next year"

[AeWingnut]

I was listening to NPR and they were talking about AIG switching from an insurance company to something else under the watchful eye of x-42.

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

the hypocrisy is running really deep on this, they all knew, or should have known about the bonuses.

Chris Dodd now wants to tax away the bonuses when he himself put in an ammendment into the stimulus bill that specifically protected those contracts.

i guess actually reading the bill before you sign it might not be such a bad idea after all. Congress has already debated this relatively meager issue much more than the stimulus bill which is roughly a 5,000 times larger blow to the taxpayer.

and then there is the Republican senator who said those guys should take a deep bow and commit suicide. Grassley should be taken away in a straightjacket.


AIG should use the Obama's earmark defense.
"Oh those contracts are last years business, we've got to move forward now. We'll make sure it doesn't happen next year"

It does not matter at this point whether the government
knew or not. The fact is we are led to believe this business,
which delved deeply to the edge of illegal derivatives,
was giving performance compensation bonuses BEFORE there was a horrible
performance. This is how big businesses are run that get so
huge and convoluted that no one had any idea how to mind
the store. This company was run as inefficiently as anything
in government. And they cheated. I am sure there are very
competent people in that company that deserve to be paid.
But it is pure folly to take government money while
the rest of the country suffers.
This company was essentially insuring investments without
the funds to back it up. Good luck with that.

[TheSpyder]

I heard this morning that they have worked a deal to get the money back and the Government has already earmarked all $165 million for a study of the Cockoo bird (coo-coo, coo-coo) . Whew, glad that worked out! Yea, Government.

Almost makes sense as they are known to just give their eggs away...

"The opinion is held by some observers that Nature has not intended the Cuckoo to build a nest, but influences it to lay its eggs in the nests of other birds, and intrust its young to the care of those species best adapted to bring them to maturity."

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by TheSpyder

I heard this morning that they have worked a deal to get the money back and the Government has already earmarked all $165 million for a study of the Cockoo bird (coo-coo, coo-coo) . Whew, glad that worked out! Yea, Government.

Almost makes sense as they are known to just give their eggs away...

"The opinion is held by some observers that Nature has not intended the Cuckoo to build a nest, but influences it to lay its eggs in the nests of other birds, and intrust its young to the care of those species best adapted to bring them to maturity."

actually, they toss the other birds' eggs out of the nest, and then move their own to the now empty nest. the victim of the crime then unwittingly raises the offspring of the murderer. damn cuckoos.

[Danzig]

back to the subject at hand however...i've been wondering why d.c. has been provoking such outrage over these bonuses-of course they are outrageous, but there's always more to the story. and then i found this.

an excerpt:

Taxpayers have already put up $173 billion, or more than a thousand times the amount of those bonuses, to fund the government's AIG "rescue." This federal takeover, never approved by AIG shareholders, uses the firm as a conduit to bail out other institutions

and this:

Since September 16, AIG has sent $120 billion in cash, collateral and other payouts to banks, municipal governments and other derivative counterparties around the world. This includes at least $20 billion to European banks. The list also includes American charity cases like Goldman Sachs, which received at least $13 billion. This comes after months of claims by Goldman that all of its AIG bets were adequately hedged and that it needed no "bailout."