I am beginning to understand why companies like AIG are so committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on sports sponsorships. It's because they like playing games. Since it seems that the executives at these companies did not get the memo, I am here to tell them that the fun and games are over.
I was shocked upon learning -- just one day after being told that top AIG executives would be forgoing bonuses this year -- that the company's executives will be receiving 'cash awards' as 'retention payments.' AIG can dress this money up in fancy names, but no one is fooled. A bonus by any other name still stinks.
When Mr. Liddy was appointed to try to steer AIG back on track, he was expected to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars, spending this money as effectively and efficiently as possible. Instead, he has continually chosen to reward failure and mislead the American people in the process. Now, it is time for Mr. Liddy to reward the taxpayers who are funding his company's wasteful spending by submitting his resignation.
AIG just doesn't seem to get it. These executives' bonuses are that they still have a job. If that job is not enough for them, there are hundreds of thousands of other Americans seeking employment who would be more than happy to take their place.
I welcome and encourage the CEO's of every company begging for taxpayer dollars to come spend a day in my district and meet the people whose hard-earned wages they have been throwing into the wind--the families who have lost their homes, the single mother who lost her job and isn't sure how she will pay her bills, and the young people who dream about going to college but just cannot afford it. Perhaps this dose of reality would drill in the message that it cannot be business as usual on Wall Street. Perhaps then Mr. Liddy would understand why the time has come for him to step down.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the companies begging us for life support cannot manage the simple task of sound judgment when it comes to fiscal matters. The profligate spending must come to an end. If these companies cannot stop inappropriately spending taxpayer dollars, I will have no problem working with Speaker Pelosi and President-elect Obama next year to enact the legislation that will do it for them.
Can we keep the interest charged to 10% above the inflation rate? What about the banks who did a good job of avoiding risk? It is unfair that some get help and others do not. Small banks are allowed to fail and the ones who avoided these problems are not being rewarded. This is fundamentally unfair and should make the U.S. Gov. liable for making an unfair business environment. There has been too much hedging going on and businesses should not rely on loans to make payroll. Loans are meant to get people and businesses off the ground, should be long term, and of low interest rates. Too many people working in the credit industry and too many people living on the credit they offer makes the country weak. I am not saying that everything I say is correct or even viable, but I am innovative, and there really needs to be some thinking that is out of the box. If you would like to talk more with me about this, Mr. Cummings, please write me, John Stephen Blyth, at theoriginalbabymonster@yahoo.com. I will work for you and support you in the Sisyphean effort to tame a culture of unquestioned and boundless greed. They've lobbied to weigh things in their favor, but made the system so lopsided, it is incapable of functioning. The gov cannot continue to come to the rescue of an economy that is not based on sustainable economic policy without major consequence.
Let's pull the bailouts of AIG and Citigroup and just distribute that money to average Americans in the form of debit cards or stimulus checks. That will do our economy much more good than allowing Bush's corporate buddies to pull the biggest embezzlement of a national treasury in world history that is also exacerbating our national debt and could eventually crash the dollar..
Or at the very least, all the execs who engendered these problems with their companies should be forced to give up 90% of their salaries and bonuses or fired. Personally, I would like to see them go from $1500 suits to orange jumpsuits at Leavenworth.
The number one cause of bankruptcy in this country is medical. This is counted on credit reports and shows that the way credit reports are done are unfair. The reliance on credit reports and very little else is partially behind this crisis. Credit reports are not good enough in evaluating someone's ability to pay things back or to start a business. Credit reports can be abused by someone with bad credit by using someone with good credit. Credit reports have taken away much of the work of the people who evaluate giving loans. The amount of usury that exists within the business practices of those who loan makes it almost impossible for people to pay off their loans, for example by charging people extra when they try to pay things off early, raising interest rates when people are late, allowing interest rates on charges (for example 78 cents I owed for a bill I thought I paid off turned into 500 something dollars within six months), allowing entrapment with teaser rates, and marketing cards to college students who don't even have jobs.
Execs are being more innovative at driving the stock price than the innovation needed to improve their products. The difference of buying low and selling high is the number one way people are making their money and this should not be the case at least in the short term. The price of a stock has become the bottom line and not the company’s long term health. If a corporation is to exist, then its execs' pay should be tied to the pay of its lowest paid employee by a number, let us say 100 times that of the lowest paid employee. The sum of the owners' pay can also be limited by a number, say 1000 times that of the lowest employee including stock options. There are people without even a high school diploma i.e. Randi Rhodes, who could do a better job than these execs and should be given a chance for management positions. If they are to demand that the gov. give them bail out money, they should agree to whatever demands congress puts on them such as the execs being given a severance check. If they are too big to fail, they need to be broken up into all of the smaller companies that they once were not so long ago. Letting the small banks fail in this crisis and letting them be bought up by larger banks in the past has paid a huge disservice for this country.
The execs of all of these companies, unless they can give us a good reason why not, for the sake of the nation need to be fired, period. The nation needs justice and to make sure future execs take note. Wall Street needs to be reformed by making the rewards less incredible, less quick, less easy. Long term investments in the stock market must be encouraged. Banks should not be allowed to be publicly traded because they are too important and could fail in an instant due to the quick and sometimes rash perceptions of the public. If Wall Street is causing too much competition with the banks, then it needs more regulation. No one should be able to make money by buying and selling a stock in a single day. Many might not be aware that there are people who have whole banks at their disposal to manipulate stocks and make money from that. The stock market's lack of regulation makes it into one giant pyramid scheme; the ones who get in first always do well; when the little guy gets in, everything crashes. Money made in the stock market is based on mass psychology rather than what a company really has to offer. Investors are relying more on the speculation of stock and its rises and falls and how much it makes during a quarter than having business practices that are sustainable and are in the best interest of the company in the long term.
flying the company jet, not once at $10,000 but 12 times a month at $10,000 each time; paying bonuses to each and every one of 80 executive a minimum of $1m each year for 10 years, and with one of the execs actually getting $13m; this, in addition to skyhigh salaries that they were already receiving; travelling to international conferences and meetings once a month (times 12 execs), first class all the way and staying at luxury resorts, because these people are so rich that they could not possibly stay at a lower class hotel or fly cattle class; having the company pick up all costs for cars, fuel and meals; having the company buy, en bloc, expensive tickets for shows around town or sporting events that are then given out to execs and clients only. Need I go on?
Read this for a little insight.
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom
Talking about the "lipstick on a pig". To them it suffices to not call it Bonus but instead retention packages.
Not like they even need the money,just greed.
Why would anybody in their tight minds want to retain these clowns?
americans wanted capitalism and have been taught to fear social demcracys.
it has worked like a charm for years for the wars for profits folks.
ya think americans will awaken to that fact.
only time will tell.
with communism man exploits man with capitalism it is the other way around.
americans need to study the history of the world's nations and see how well imperialism has worked out for those nations.
we are receiving the results of our imperialism.
enjoy americans as we bail out wall street and banks and as they give themselves bonuses.
socialism at its best right here in american land.
Now,why would you wanna retain a non professional in an event of inattentiveness or an incompetent twart in an event where they didnt know how to steer the titanic from the ice berg?
'retention payments.'
Sounds like AIG execs need maximum strength exlax.