Never since the Great Depression has the financial industry had less credibility than at this moment. Since the beginning of this recession in December 2007, more than 3.6 million Americans have been added to the unemployment roles, and the losses of U.S. financial firms has totaled more that $700 billion. Yet as families have cut their spending to the bare necessities, financial firms, who have received more than $700 billion in federal bailout money under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), have handed out more than $18 billion in bonuses.
Giving out $18 billion in bonuses at a time when ordinary Americans have seen their life savings collapse is outrageous. To give out these bonuses using federal bailout money is over the edge. However, the financial barons of our day maintain that despite the nonexistent capital in their firms, they need to continue their extravagant practices. This is readily apparent in this week's announcement that AIG, who has received multiple federal bailouts, will be doling out an additional $165 million in bonuses paid for with taxpayer money, including millions to the idiots in the unit who drove the company to ruin.
I don't buy the notion that they need lavish bonuses to keep the best and brightest. After what they have done to their companies, the economy and the savings of everyday Americans, we can't afford such brilliance. At AIG let them quit or fire them. It is hard to imagine who would do a worse job regardless of how much or little they were paid. If they insist on enforcing contracts that reward reckless incompetence, which some claim they have a legal right to collect, then I say fine, let them collect it, but Congress has the right to tax it.
For years the tax code around here has been tortured to reward people who need tax cuts absolutely the least. Hopefully we can use it this time to impose a little tax justice. I've signed on as a co-sponsor to a bill coming out of the Ways and Means Committee which will make it a federal law that all employees of companies collecting more than $5 billion in TARP funds, and earning more than $250,000 a year in gross salary will have to pay a 90% tax on any bonus money they receive.
At a minimum, AIG should be stopped -- and other firms that collect bailout money should be prohibited from issuing large cash bonuses. This is not about outrage; this is about taking action. The financial stability of our nation and our communities depends on reasonable use of taxpayer dollars. It is a matter of fundamental fairness to the American people that their hard-earned dollars are spent in a manner that will grow the entire economy, not just the bank accounts of these weasels that took our money on the guise that they would save our economic system.
Why should folks at Fanny & Freddie have a salary greater than the President's and then receive fat retention bonuses on top of the salary?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/03/bonuses-fannie.html
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/03/bonuses-fannie.html
By the way, did anyone see Mr. Libby's testimony yesterday? I did, however, our corporate media is not reporting the facts. So far, our corporate media and the GOP is reporting, AIG was loned $170 billion; however, according to Mr. Libby's testimony, AIG was loned $40 billion from the TARP and approximately $38 billion was loaned by the Federal Reserves. It appears, our corporate media and the GOP doesn't understand math or the difference between the Federal Reserve (Fed), a private institution, and the US Government. They keep blending to the two together when discussing the AIG loans. Mr. Liddy testified under oath, or we to believe our corporate media or the GOP who has not testified under oath. Listen to what he said:
http://cspan.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-R-16523
You sir are either uninformed about business or compeltely dishonest.
The fact that these people are now receiving death threats because of false information put about by you and your democratic colleagues in congress, as well as the president, is unconscionable.
Shame on you all.
Just call a criminal a criminal and move on. Perhaps the RICO act can be applied.
When a financial company has issued trillions of dollars worth of securities that it knew or should have known to be worthless ...
... When a financial ratings company gave those securities an "AAA" rating ...
... When usury is not only rampant in this country but on the increase ...
... let us just say that "the power and the authority of the Congress of the United States is not a thing to be parleyed with." You represent, and defend, the collective interests of 305 million people (and that's just "here").
It's quite another thing to proclaim that your company is bankrupt, that it is the end of the world as we know it, AND that oh-by-the-way we "need" to spend extravagantly upon ourselves.
Obviously, the fact that "it's outrageous" is BESIDE the point. The true point is, "you cannot be saying such a thing to me unless you were intentionally lying ... either now, or in the recent past, or both."
And, well, if you are lying to a Federal official ... that's a(nother) Felony, now isn't it?
F-E-L-O-N-Y ... what an interesting and promising word.
We need some spirit from AIG or other troubled firms. Everyone involved should sacrifice in proportion to their ability and work to turn things around. That should be publicly shown by attitude and actions.
For AIG that would be something like, "We screwed up. We learned and this won't recur. The company, from top down, will pull together to come back stronger than ever. Top management will work for $1 per year. Everyone else is taking pay cuts with no one making more than the Secretary of the Treasury. All expenses will be drastically cut - no fancy dinners, cheap travel (pool bonus miles for company use), inexpensive hotels, and brown bag lunches. Executives who have been making big bucks will show faith by investing 50% of their total wealth in AIG stock...... Etc."
Let's have some style here.
In God we trust or in Devil we trust?
I read somewhere in some self-important business book or article, that it is healthy for companies to be constantly shedding the worst 10% of their work force - the "bottom 10%." Isn't it convenient how prevailing economic theory always serves the interest of the affluent, the empowered at the expense of the powerless?
Well, that worst 10% of companies happens to be at the top of corporate ladders right about now...
Fire them! and not just the top 10% of AIG. How about the top 10% of every single bank, investment bank, brokerage, insurance company, auto company, construction company, real estate developer, defense contractor... and on down the line. They aren't needed. They are taking the rest of us down.
Fire them! Fire them! No bonuses...
You should also have mentioned how the Corporations and the Republicans have worked consistently to destroy the Unions. Other than friendly Liberal/ Democrat Governments that have sought to protect the working rights of Ordinary Americans, we have nothing else to guarantee those rights. Americans need to get a grip and support not help to destroy the Unions simply because they aren't members of a union. When Ordinary Americans, even in subtle ways assist the Corporations in destroying Unions they don't realize it but they are also hurting themselves. Remember the old adage, "In Unity their is Strength". Unions are Unity. They are a means for the average citizen to protect themselves against the rapacious behavior of the Corporate wealthy elite.
1. Short-notice of bonus payments implies wrong-doing in itself?
2. Ethical grounds exist for canceling bonuses and firing?
1. Why do we have to find out about bonuses not being able to be stopped only days before their due date of March 15th?... Possession is nine tenths of the law. Does not the very nature of the short-notice imply wrong-doing by making it a fait accompli before enough time was given to figure out how to stop them because of the obvious justification to stop them?
2. Are there not grounds to cancel bonuses and fire
those so called ?in-expendable? people for having
broken ethical standards?
The sum total of their activity was woefully
irresponsible, dangerous, and has caused countless
suffering and financial ruin and threatens the very
security of the country if not a good part of the
entire world. For that reason alone they should be
fired on the spot. As should be the people who
hired them, and the people who are trying to
defend them now.
Is not breaking the spirit of ethical standards
grounds for dismissal in most companies?
grounds for dismissal in most companies?"
No. Breaking the law is. Breaking the spirits of anything isn't. You can be an a-hole all day long and get away with it just fine.