WSJ.
Well, which is it? Just out of curiousity. Since it is, after all, my money, because I've been doing my little bit to bail out AIG.
I mean, I know that salespeople always make the most money, and deservedly so -- but does that also apply to salespeople selling toxic paper?
American International Group Inc. will pay $450 million in bonuses to employees in its financial products unit. That division was at the heart of AIG's collapse last fall, which compelled the U.S. government to provide $173.3 billion in aid to keep it running.
Chief Executive Edward Liddy told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a letter dated Saturday that the next payments to employees of the financial products unit -- whose woes caused massive losses at the giant insurer -- are due on Sunday, and added "quite frankly, AIG's hands are tied."
Liddy wept (John 11:35).
And I know Liddy feels his predicament keenly. Here's my idea:
Why don't we hold congressional hearings -- or maybe even a Pecora Commission -- and subpoena every single one of those salesman to testify on exactly what they did to earn those bonuses? I'm betting some very interesting information would come out.
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Yeah, I bet hearings w/ Cassano peole under oath could be very,
very interesting. Indeed, perhaps Liddy's hands are tied not by contractual language but by possible testimonial language. No bonuses, they walk -- and then talk; bonuses, they stay and obey.
Who knows?
ABC News just used the $165M bonuses figure.
By the way, most sales people don't have contracts; they have sales quotas, commissions, etc., all of which can be changed at the need and whim of the employer. This sounds like execs who may manage sales people -- and are the ones to blame for the losses.
House of Cards author Wm Cohen on saying AIG may actually need these people as they're the only ones who know anything about how the mess was made. They need them to "deconstruct" the Big $hit Pile.
Supposedly AIG will reveal (tonight?) where some of the TARP I monies went.
And, as Big Tent Democrat was pointing out at Talk Left, these bonuses will probably make getting additional bailout money out of Congress very difficult.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan....
Back to a Pecora Commission type of thing: Must be done. Absolutely. Time for calls and letters to the WH. Congress, LTE's to papers.
If AIG went bankrupt, they wouldn't have to pay bonuses
And yet they're claiming that because the government is bailing them out, they simply have to pay bonuses to employees who only succeeded in bankrupting the company and would face difficulty in being hired elsewhere. Yes, sounds totally legit to me. In fact, don't even bother showing me the actual contracts!
Honestly, I don't give a fuck if Summers, Geither, and Obama stamp their feet and yell how outrageous this is until they're blue in the face: they're in on it. They could stop it, but they don't want to.
Combined this with the fact that the G-20 is failing and Eastern Europe is going to take down the rest of Europe, I'm starting to believe we've already fallen off the cliff with no parachute.
And the ring-a-ding-ding last week from China
indicates that the Fix Is In.
AIG expanded its business massively into the PRC during the mid-90s. They might have had a piece of the insurance for the Three Gorges dam, but it's a sure thing that their policies bolstered both domestic and foreign investment in China.
If AIG defaults -- and that means the insurance arm as well as the fercockte investment arms -- what would happen to Chinese investors in ongoing construction projects? China could well retaliate by stopping its purchases of American debt -- and that's when our depression would begin in earnest.
I'm not saying save AIG at all costs -- because that's what Obama seems to be doing, and how's that working for him?