Aig Bonuses

[judgeposer]

Here's an letter of resignation from an AIG executive that appeared in yesterday's New York Times. I found it enlightening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/...;pagewanted=all Edited March 25, 2009 by judgeposer

[Rani]

Here's an letter of resignation from an AIG executive that appeared in yesterday's New York Times. I found it enlightening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/...;pagewanted=all

I'm a bit of a cynic in that I wonder how a document that is federally protected against publication made it into the papers. Personnel documents including resignations are private and protected against disclosure. However, this has just been one great big balls up from the very beginning. First of all, the company should have been allowed to fail under it's own mismanagement. Taxpayers shouldn't have to rescue any company. However, the justification for the bail out was because the influence of AIG is such that it's failure would have further damaged our economic situation. I'm not an economist, so I don't know if that's true or not, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument here. The bonuses however, should have been deferred. Not taken away. Not taxed onto oblivion. Deferred until such time as a healthier company could afford to make the payments out of their own pockets. It's not fair to the employees that part of their contract has been taken away and that they're facing outrage for which they don't deserve blame. The CEO, Board of Directors and our government officials didn't know what the hell they were doing when they structured a deal they insisted was necessary. And now everybody is paying for it. Including employees that did their jobs day after day and chose to have faith in their managment. How on earth do you confidently apply for a job with AIG at the top of your resume?

'Rani

[TheScotsman]

Here's an letter of resignation from an AIG executive that appeared in yesterday's New York Times. I found it enlightening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/...;pagewanted=all

I'm a bit of a cynic in that I wonder how a document that is federally protected against publication made it into the papers. Personnel documents including resignations are private and protected against disclosure. However, this has just been one great big balls up from the very beginning. First of all, the company should have been allowed to fail under it's own mismanagement. Taxpayers shouldn't have to rescue any company. However, the justification for the bail out was because the influence of AIG is such that it's failure would have further damaged our economic situation. I'm not an economist, so I don't know if that's true or not, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument here. The bonuses however, should have been deferred. Not taken away. Not taxed onto oblivion. Deferred until such time as a healthier company could afford to make the payments out of their own pockets. It's not fair to the employees that part of their contract has been taken away and that they're facing outrage for which they don't deserve blame. The CEO, Board of Directors and our government officials didn't know what the hell they were doing when they structured a deal they insisted was necessary. And now everybody is paying for it. Including employees that did their jobs day after day and chose to have faith in their managment. How on earth do you confidently apply for a job with AIG at the top of your resume?

'Rani

And just how bad will it be when we have a gov't mandated enrollment in a health insurance policy with a private company (like AIG) then they go broke.


The AIG collapse was cauled by a handfull of people in the London office. They decided that it was a good idea to buy every DCS they could, but never sold one. Once a company (or a gov't) gets so big one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, then failure is the only option.

[judgeposer]

Here's an letter of resignation from an AIG executive that appeared in yesterday's New York Times. I found it enlightening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/...;pagewanted=all

I'm a bit of a cynic in that I wonder how a document that is federally protected against publication made it into the papers. Personnel documents including resignations are private and protected against disclosure. However, this has just been one great big balls up from the very beginning. First of all, the company should have been allowed to fail under it's own mismanagement. Taxpayers shouldn't have to rescue any company. However, the justification for the bail out was because the influence of AIG is such that it's failure would have further damaged our economic situation. I'm not an economist, so I don't know if that's true or not, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument here. The bonuses however, should have been deferred. Not taken away. Not taxed onto oblivion. Deferred until such time as a healthier company could afford to make the payments out of their own pockets. It's not fair to the employees that part of their contract has been taken away and that they're facing outrage for which they don't deserve blame. The CEO, Board of Directors and our government officials didn't know what the hell they were doing when they structured a deal they insisted was necessary. And now everybody is paying for it. Including employees that did their jobs day after day and chose to have faith in their managment. How on earth do you confidently apply for a job with AIG at the top of your resume?

'Rani

The substance of that resignation letter seems to have an increasing amount of support: http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/03/a_...tale_of_aig.php. This post supplies an additional WaPo story with greater detail. I wish I could verify some of the claims the post's author makes, but even without verified details (it is, after all, a major and reputable monthly's blog), the author's explanation still adds context and contradiction to the notion that the AIG bonuses were necessarily inappropriate. It still doesn't speak to your point that those bonuses, whatever their purpose, could've been withheld. The only sort of explantion for why that couldn't happen is becuase these were not bonuses as popularly meant by the term, but more salary.

[ilikemyusername]

they should go to blue collar bang me in the ass prison.