AIG & Bonuses . . . WTF?

* Warning rant ahead, bifocals optional.

I’ve been out of town lately so I have been somewhat lacking in the news department for the last month so when I started to catch up on a few things I was blown away about a few things. Probably many of you were too.

Turns out AIG again took millions of dollars of the bail out money the Government gave them and paid more executive bonuses. Now this is the second set of bonuses paid since the financial collapse started. One guy received six million dollars. I read that over fifty others got more than a million. All right, it is an outrage. But wouldn’t you want to work at a company that rewards failure on a historic level with million dollar bonuses?

I don’t know about you but I have never screwed something up on a job to the point where we had to go beg the Government for financial help three times and then the boss sat down with me to write a giant check. I wonder what you get for doing your job really well over at AIG.

Think of the balls you would have to have to see your company branded public enemy number one in the middle of the greatest economic disaster of our lifetimes and still walk into your bosses office and go, “So when am I getting that bonus check?” The things I could accomplish with a set like those!

The obvious question is bonuses for what? The bonus money came from the third Government bail out. You morons! If it weren’t for that money you wouldn’t even have a job right now. Someone needs to explain exactly what these people did to deserve these huge bonuses after they bankrupted the world economy.

The first story told was it was a retention bonus. They couldn’t have bright minds leaving so they paid these bonuses to keep the best and the brightest. I know, I had that same gut reaction when I read it too. When I read that the first time I practically fell out of my chair.

The best and the brightest?

The best and the brightest on Wall Street seem to be the people that got us into this mess. They were the con artist who pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes that it was an exciting and rewarding business. You would have done better in the public’s eye if you just said you paid them off to leave and stop screwing everything up. The main problem with the retention story is after getting their million dollar plus bonus checks, eleven employees left the company with more to follow. So much for that bullshit.

The next story was . . . it was written into the contracts and the Government knew this when handing over our money to the failed giant, AIG.

Well, sort of.

This is the kind of political fight that Washington enjoys playing as sport. The blame goes around. It’s either the Republicans or the Democrats fault depending on who you talk to. Here is a crucial little piece of fact that people might want to remember or hold onto during all this. This deal was first signed by Bush just before he left office. Not Obama (and remember I am still now a big fan). I don’t tell you this to wade into the argument; I just want to see this fact acknowledged. Also, someone did think about this situation and did put an amendment in the original bail out bill that stated very clearly that this money could not be used for any type of bonus pay. It got taken out of the bill at the last minute. Why? Because this is America damn it! The Government shouldn’t and doesn’t decide what the limit is for executive pay! Ah ha!

Maybe it should now. Because it is the little guy who needs the bonuses or at least better benefits with real help to families? They kept telling the unions to renegotiate their contracts, why can’t we tell AIG and anyone else getting our money to do the same thing?

It’s interesting to note that when the big three automakers came to Washington looking for bail out money many insisted that the unions agree to lower their wages to what foreign auto workers make. In the middle of a crisis that largely affects low and middle class workers, let’s lower their rate of pay. I’m no fan of the union as I think they have exploited business and raised the cost of products and projects but at least we are all trying to work and provide for our families.

I guess its ironically funny how its called evil socialism when people making less than $60,000 a year need health care, jobs and a financially sound future but it’s called helping out a company that’s too big to fail when it comes to forking over billions of dollars to the exact same assholes people who got us here in the first place.

How the hell does that work? Where do we sign up for our “retention bonus” for working hard everyday making our company successful?

Ice