AIG Pulls Fast One -- "Cash Awards" Going To Managers
When you are a pro at a scam--the definition of "scam" also can be found under the term "insurance industry" -- you know how to try to pull a fast one. And AIG is trying to pull one -- under cover of the holidays. Check this out.
You may remember that AIG -- which is afloat only thanks to a bailout by you, the taxpayer, to the tune of $152 billion and counting--made a whole lot of public relations when its top seven executives agreed not to take bonuses this year.
Well, on the eve of Thanksgiving, obviously knowing the markets would be closed on the holiday and obviously knowing that just before the holiday few people would pay attention, AIG actually notified regulators that, well, yes, bonuses would be given out, as Bloomberg News and The Financial Times reports today:
American International Group Inc., the insurer that said yesterday it scrapped bonuses for top executives after a U.S. bailout, will still pay 130 managers "cash awards" to stay with the firm, including $3 million to retirement services chief Jay Wintrob.
Wintrob, 51, will get the "retention" payment in two installments, the first in April 2009 and the rest a year later, New York-based AIG said today in a regulatory filing. The firm previously disclosed the program in a Sept. 26 filing and said today that Wintrob and Chief Financial Officer David Herzog elected to get the payments four months later than planned."The expectation from the public and Congress was that they weren't getting bonuses, not that they'd be pushed off by several months," said David Schmidt, a consultant at executive pay firm James F. Reda & Associates. "That clearly violates the spirit of AIG saying they'll forgo their bonuses."[emphasis added]
From the FT:
However, the UBS news comes just a day after it emerged AIG, which has received more than $150bn in bail-out financing from the US government, would still pay 130 managers "cash awards" to stay with the firm. AIG disclosed the bonuses in a regulatory filing on the evening before Thanksgiving, a day when US markets are closed. The insurer had previously said its seven top executives would forgo their bonuses for 2008.
They just can't help themselves, can they? Call it "retention pay" or "cash bonuses" or some other euphemism -- but the fact is that your tax dollars are going to reward people who are lucky to even have jobs. There should have been a housecleaning that swept the entire top level of managers out on their asses for playing a role in the financial crisis that is hurting millions of people.
I have not seen this reported in other mainline traditional media. But, this is a scam.
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This pisses me off so badly. The rich get richer. But I better pay my taxes or else. I hope Obama is able to do something about this.
If you don't pay people like this big bonuses, they'll walk out, and there will be no one left to convert all those taxpayer dollars into mush. I mean, come on, those scores of billion would only be wasted on trifles like health care, infrastructure renewal and job creation if you didn't have people like AIG to suck it up and make it vanish forever. What kind of way would that be to run an economy? Best retain this talent and turn that money into compost while you have the chance.
We need to tax it right back out of them. The ultrarich can start by paying off their national debt.
Hear, hear. I can't believe that their is a need to retain these obvious failures in positions of leadership. They must have some heavy duty blacmail pictures. The board of directors are a matter of public information, right? We need to contact those people.
This makes me so angry....smoke is coming out of my ears. I truly wish someone would do something to stop this. The executives and employees of the companies we are bailing out should NOT line their pockets with our hard-earned money. Granting deferred bonuses, and cash "awards" to the very people that would have caused the companies to go out of business without a government bailout makes no sense. I don't understand why our lawmakers haven't put these type of common-sense conditions on the bailout money we give these companies BEFORE agreeing to give the funds out. If the companies don't agree to the conditions...then let them go under. AIG would NOT have decided to give these cash awards and deferred bonuses if they had not been granted a bail-out....now that they have extra cash....they feel "why not?"
Ourlawmakers haven't put common sense on bailout conditions because they have no common sense. And if we continue to vote for them, we don't either.
We've been had...by both the Dems AND the Republicans. This is why Paulson tried to get assurances, when he first approached Congress that there would be no court action against him or the rest of them during this money laundering scheme.
I don't know if Congress gave him THAT, but they sure gave him the farm, didn't they? The attack on America is escalating in these (hopefully) final days of the Neo Cons.
I gotta wonder how much of America will even be left to save, cause they are busy, busy boys. Everyone I look, it's one horror story after another. :::::::sigh:::::::
And when the neo-cons are done, the DLC will take over. The only change you will see is the balance in the US Treasury.
familiar with the term "so mad I could spit?" yep, that's me...and yes, I also believe our reps/senators should be on the house floor screaming and demang our money back...add to that, any customer of AIG should suddenly be insurance shopping...this is a company the whole world can do without...certainly not "too big to let fail." I, personally, would stick out my foot to help it fall....I think we americans are so scandal burdened, that we are in shock..contstantly...but the folks that can do something about this better realize that they are not unionized in the house and senate, and those that sit idly by and let this crap happen know that eventually they will come up for re-election, and as just an average citizen, I will be checking to see how our government officials act/or not act...everyone, make it known to your reps your position on this...WE CAN HAVE AN AFFECT.
Can someone post an email address that will go directly to AIG?
Flood them with our outrage.We need to make sure that EVERYONE sends an email so they get the message.
Does someone have connections with the Obama website/campaign to use that webpage to send this message of 'disgust'. Are they able to do something like that?
These kind of people would just laugh at it, the way they did the liberals the last 28 years.
There is a place for suggestions on the transition site:
www.change.gov
I agree re/ AIG. If it is too big to fail, then anyone who has insurance with that company needs to go shopping for a new one. If the company had not been "too big to fail", it would not have received a bail-out. Let's all try to reduce it to a smaller size.
After Wal-Mart destroys all the small businesses in a community, will it ask for a bail-out using the AIG principle?
These people are being given too much power by the treasury and ought to be taken to court. What is going on here is unconstitutional. Someone should file suit. These people should be made to give all the money taken for these salaries and bonuses and cash awards, back to the working people they have stolen it from. They are no better than thieves .
This infuriates me. The "expectation" that there would be no bonuses should have been a condition in writing before they recieved any money from the tax payers.
HOW MANY OF THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS RIPPED OFF FROM THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS AND GIVEN TO UNSCRUPULOUS LENDERS AND INVESTMENT FIRMS WILL FINALLY REACH IT'S WAY BACK INTO THE POCKETS OF HENRY PAULSON AND GEORGE W. BUSH. PAULSON HAS BEEN ADAMANT ABOUT GETTING ALL OF THIS DONE BEOFRE BUSH LEAVES OFFICE BECAUSE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PULL OFF THE BIGGEST HEIST IN HISTORY WOULD NOT HAPPEN UNDER ANY OTHER ADMINISTRATION. THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT WITH THIS GOVERNMENT AND HISTORY WILL PROVE THAT OVER 10 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM THE TAXPAYERS BY THIS IMPOSTER AND HIS MINIONS. WE SHOULD DECLARE JANUARY 21 AS A NATIONAL HOLIDAY BECAUSE WE ARE GETTING RID OF THE TRASH THAT HAS OCCUPIED THE WHITE HOUSE FOR 8 YEARS.
We've been had...by both the Dems AND the Republicans. This is why Paulson tried to get assurances, when he first approached Congress that there would be no court action against him or the rest of them during this money laundering scheme.
I don't know if Congress gave him THAT, but they sure gave him the farm, didn't they? The attack on America is escalating in these (hopefully) final days of the Neo Cons.
I gotta wonder how much of America will even be left to save, cause they are busy, busy boys. Everyone I look, it's one horror story after another. :::::::sigh:::::::
This latest misuse of our money by AIG is beyond disheartening. Why are our supposed representatives standing idle on the sidelines?
Retention bonuses are used to make sure that someone who has worked at a company for a long time and has an area of expertise do not leaver for a competitor. They are necessary in the business world to keep your talent and knowledge base.
That is true...but they could have been given bonuses in the form of stock or stock options. You know...stick around and get rich by making the company profitable for the long term, and you'll have more equity in this terrific company.
Or something like that.
Talent and knowledge base? Did you seriously say that? This is the company that needed our money to stay afloat, they obviously have NO talent or knowledge base!! If they did, perhaps they wouldn't have been in the mess they were and are.
Why do we the taxpayers not have a say in this? Why do we not get to DO something while these people give away OUR hard earned money to people who more than obviously don't deserve it!
If anyone at AIG had an area of expertise, would they be in a position where they needed a bail-out? Hasn't this company already shown that it has no talent and knowledge base? Instead of retention bonuses, aren't pink slips in order?
Tax them at 100% and recoup the money back to the government.
Delayed their bonuses by 4 months. Admirable indeed. How much to you wanna bet that the CFO took the bonus money, put it in an interest bearing account, paid the bonuses 4 months later, then took his...plus 4months worth of interest ?
Hey, I might be cut out for the corporate/thief industry. :)
I spent a year at AIG back in the late 80's. Worst corporate environment ever. Believe me, you'd have hated it.
When OKing mergers, buyouts, etc. perhaps the government should also look at 'too big to fail' and when that is factored into thinking mayhap we'll consign that theory to the rubbish heap. Many smaller businesses in the same business should continue, not just because they compete, but because they hire more people, provide more choices, think more carefully about who the competition might be and be more inventive about what they do. And they would also be small enough to fail and still not disrupt the economy.
I'd guess these bonuses for "job retention" are more likely bonuses for "incriminating information retention" by managers who have detailed knowledge of the massive fraud perpetrated by AIG, the lynch pin in the economic meltdown.
Hear, hear.
In the meanwhile, in the news today, a Washington State homeless shelter will have to close its doors, at the beginning of winter, because it cannot procure $50,000,000 it needs to keep its doors open for another year. Go figure.
Oh, and I almost forgot, the building they're housed in is being foreclosed.
Bring these bums to the Northwest, and make them experience living homeless in Seattle this winter, I say!
Note to the moderators: Why is my comment not being allowed to appear? What's wrong with it?
A fifty million dollar homeless shelter? Wow! How many do they house?
Not as many as you might think. 20 to 30 a night, if I correctly understood... but they do offer drug counseling, and feed about 150 homeless daily... even so, I also question the amount of money they need vis-a-vis the services they provide.
Nevertheless, its closure because of lack of funds, while using so much of our tax money to bail out already wealthy people, clearly shows our sense of priorities, even if a large percentage of the monies needed to keep it open go to pay staff and other operating expenses.
$50 million for a homless shelter?? That doesn't sound right.
Please don't bus those homeless people to California. Send them to a red state.
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