AIG In Talks With U.S. Over Another $250 Million In Bonuses

Washington Post:

American International Group's recent discussions with President Obama's compensation czar have centered on whether the company should pay about $250 million in promised bonuses that come due during the next nine months.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[LunaPark]

I'd rather stand in a soup line than let these SOBs get another penny.

[SensibleJoe]

"Bonus" means "good" in Latin -- as in an extra reward (not something expected) for good work. AIG isn't doing a good job, so no bonuses for AIG!

[blimie]

A compensation czar, what a useless overblown laughable title. AIG will say we need to keep our top people. Our czar will make a few little mewling noises and AIG will go forward with the bonuses.
Congress and our president will try to avoid speaking on the subject.

[Hannspree]

And...does anyone posting cries of righetous indignation..think even for a moment that these CEO's even care, or are reading about the offense you have taken regarding their self serving intentions?

[David2]

They should be thankful that someone like myself wasn't in position to give their "blessing" for "retention incentives":

While I appreciate your willingness to come forward and ask for permission to distribute your "retention incentives", I hope you can understand how this is being viewed by the people who are having to foot the bill for your misadventures. So I would be willing to offer you the following choices.

You can distribute your $250 million provided that you first pay back every penny of the $123 BILLION that we have been providing for your company to stay solvent. Then you would be able to make any sort of payments you wish without ever needed our approval or blessing.

I understand that paying back that money would also send the company into insolvency, so you can also consider another option whereby we would approve the spending of $300 million, only it wouldn't be considered a "retention incentive" as much as it would be a severance package for you and all of your executives. Oh, and we would be getting the SEC to invoke the "gross malfeasance" clause in Sarbaines-Oxley, which would not only remove you from your position but would also prohibit you from having any position of executive authority in any company ever again.

If either of those options don't sound too appealing you can always opt to leave things the way they are, which is what the rest of this country has to do. Your call.

[dagnome27]

NO MORE EFFIN' BONUSES FOR WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALS

[NHGranite]

Are they effin kidding? Let em go the way of the automakers, where contracts were not honored. Search on this headline: Regulating AIG: Who Fell Asleep On The Job? by Chana Joffe-Walt

[LemonMeringue]

Please write the White House about this. http://whitehouse.gov

This is not change.

[Fler]

Wonder if the names of any of these "bonus earners" are on this other list (people who are evading taxes with secret offshore accounts:)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20090712/us-ubs-secrets/

Note the request for delay is slipped in on a Sunday less than 24 hours before proceedings are to begin. Nobody wants this front and center. Oh well, the accounts are probably in names that would disguise the true identities of the actual account holders anyway... would probably take months of dedicated research to sort it all out... these people are not stupid.

[LemonMeringue]

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Send them packing with no salaries at all.

[Kujiranoai]

If the American people lived within their means and repaid the money that they borrowed to pay for their oversized houses and oversized cars then AIG would never be in the state they are now.

The reason why AIG and all the other American financial institutions are in the mess they are in is that the American people have indulged in a selfish, greed driven orgy of over consumption unparalleled in human history. AIG and other American financial institutions underwrote this greed because the American government, voted in by the American people, let them do so. The reason the American people voted for the governments that brought them this mess is because of their stupidity. They were stupid enough to believe in "The American Dream" and its ideological cousin, "Market Fundamentalism". The American middle classes and poor believed in these fantasies while the American rich got richer at their expense.

The rich American elite - the politicians, the private equity barons, the hedge fund owners, Goldman Sachs – are happy for the American people to focus on trivialities like AIG bonuses. These trivialities distract the American people from understanding the culpability of those elites who even now are paying themselves literally billions of dollars at the cost of the American middle classes and poor.

Wake up people of America, see how the rest of the world sees you and do something to win the rest of the world's respect for a change.

[Hannspree]

Another $250 Million In Bonuses?

People - This is a an in your face, no shame, no remorse act of arrogance and blatant defiance - an accross the board representation of the current corporate America business model.

Funny ~ we have made great strides curing all kinds cancer, even those once thought to be a certain death toll. Invoke Congress? pleade for sanity, balance and reasonableness?

Sorry, but to date it is becoming apparent daily that there is no cure for greed other than the fear and real threat of immediate, swift retribution, short of outright revolt as seen depicted in......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DRAD-j8ObI&feature=related

Who knows...maybe the millions of homeless, bankrupt, unemployed Americans now roaming the streets will lead the revolution? Critical mass will soon require a new definition. The alternative..is too continue the round robbin, shell, blame game discussions.

I , perhaps you, and many others will probably be at the front of the line to join them. :)

As they say, "there but for the grace of god go I"....ya'll keep that in mind.

[CanadianBeef]

At the top of the economy, failure is rewarded and bonuses are just expected. I always suspected it. Now it's proven.

[nicole5]

When will this stop???!!!

Goldman Sachs runs the USA, there is no longer any doubt about it. AIG was kept afloat so it wouldn't renege on its payouts to Goldman Sachs.

Giving banking execs multi-million dollar bonuses is INDEFENSIBLE at this point.

[CanadianBeef]

Hard to see how all the "talent" at AIG, the folks who brought down the world financial system, deserves a salary, let alone a bonus. Let alone at taxpayers' expense.

[GrumpyinAZ]

No one at AIG should be making more than minimum wage