AIG Rec'd $170 billion in Bailout /Giving$165 million in bonuses

jimmoyer

jimmoyer
Apr 3, 2005
5,101
22
38
69
Winchester Virginia
www.contactcorp.net
The real untold story is the AIG Comercials.

Anyone ever see them?

AIG blanketed all networks with this commercial.

Ever see the one where the Dad is sitting at the bottom of a tree.
He's watching the butterflies, enjoying the bucolic setting.

His daughter approaches him and says in such an erudite paragraph I cannot recall exactly but it's overall approach is, Have you thought about your 401k and pension and the impact of the cycles of the stock market etc etc. Aren't you worrying and doing something about the financial future of you and your family?

He pauses in answering her very intellectual questions.

He says, "Honey, I have AIG."

She stares for a moment, and then says, "Oh."

I'll bet that AIG has thundered all over creation to obliterate every evidence of that commercial OR MORE IMPORTANTLY has threatened anyone who will use it.
 

VanIsle

Always thinking
Nov 12, 2008
7,046
43
48
Do you have evidence that these individuals didn't do what they were required to do in order to get these payments? It's a simple question.
Quite awhile ago (in the past few weeks) it was clearly stated in the news that they gave consent to far too many bad loans. They should simply have been fired without any pay. I think it's a simple answer.:smile:
 

JLM

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 27, 2008
75,301
548
113
Vernon, B.C.
Do you have evidence that these individuals didn't do what they were required to do in order to get these payments?

Yep, pretty good evidence- people in successful business pay their employees money to MAKE money for them. That's the whole idea behind bonuses or (whatever name you want to call them)
 

jimmoyer

jimmoyer
Apr 3, 2005
5,101
22
38
69
Winchester Virginia
www.contactcorp.net
By the way, there is a problem of the US Constitution. It is constitutionally illegal to make a law targeting individuals. It's called a Bill of Attainder.

You cannot pick out a single individual or even 20 individuals and make a law apply only to them.

It is inherently unfair, and unconstitutional. This is a reaction to the abuses of the British Parliament in the 1700s making laws targeting an individual or set of individuals.

I'm against the bonuses, so is everyone else, but we have a constitutional issue here in the states.
 

Cannuck

Time Out
Feb 2, 2006
30,245
99
48
Alberta
Quite awhile ago (in the past few weeks) it was clearly stated in the news that they gave consent to far too many bad loans. They should simply have been fired without any pay. I think it's a simple answer.:smile:

That hasn't answered the question....and the issue is not whether or not they should have been fired. The issue is whether or not they fulfilled their obligations in order to get this money.
 

Cannuck

Time Out
Feb 2, 2006
30,245
99
48
Alberta
Yep, pretty good evidence- people in successful business pay their employees money to MAKE money for them. That's the whole idea behind bonuses or (whatever name you want to call them)

Some bonuses yes...but not all. Here in Alberta, people have been paid extra if they showed up for work for five days in a row. Regardless of how silly one may find this idea, it is something that companies have done and when employees showed up to work five straight days, the companies owed them money. So, again, do you have evidence that these individuals didn't do what they were required to do in order to get these payments? It's a simple question and I can keep asking it.
 

Zzarchov

House Member
Aug 28, 2006
4,600
100
63
By the way, there is a problem of the US Constitution. It is constitutionally illegal to make a law targeting individuals. It's called a Bill of Attainder.

You cannot pick out a single individual or even 20 individuals and make a law apply only to them.

It is inherently unfair, and unconstitutional. This is a reaction to the abuses of the British Parliament in the 1700s making laws targeting an individual or set of individuals.

I'm against the bonuses, so is everyone else, but we have a constitutional issue here in the states.

In technicality, im pretty sure the law applies to anyone who takes government money to prevent a collapse.
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
73
48
Do you have evidence that these individuals didn't do what they were required to do in order to get these payments? It's a simple question.

They were retention bonuses. I put in an explanation of what they are for. This can't be answered since we don't know what the time stipulations were.

Bush has proven that it doesn't matter what the laws are today, they can always be changed if a President wants to change them.
 
Last edited:

Walter

Hall of Fame Member
Jan 28, 2007
34,892
129
63
Dodd Blames Obama Administration for Bonus Amendment
By Ryan J. Donmoyer

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the Obama administration asked him to insert a provision in last month’s $787 billion economic- stimulus legislation that had the effect of authorizing American International Group Inc.’s bonuses.
Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said yesterday he agreed to modify restrictions on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer assistance to exempt bonuses already agreed upon in contracts. He said he did so without realizing the change would benefit AIG, whose recent $165 million payment to employees has sparked a public furor.
Dodd said he had wanted to limit executive compensation at companies that got money from the government’s financial-rescue fund. AIG has received $173 billion in bailout money. His provision was changed as the stimulus legislation was negotiated between the House and Senate.
“I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment” to the stimulus bill, “but I did so at the request of administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG,” Dodd said in a statement released last night. “Let me be clear -- I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week.” He didn’t name the administration officials who made the request.
No Insistence
An administration official said last night that representatives of President Barack Obama didn’t insist on the change, though they did contend that the language in Dodd’s amendment could be legally challenged because it would apply retroactively to bonus agreements. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That provision in the stimulus bill may undercut complaints by congressional Democrats about the AIG bonuses because most of them voted for the legislation. No Republicans in the House and only three in the Senate supported the stimulus measure

The politicians, including O'Bama, approved the bonuses. What a bunch of hypocrites.
 

Kreskin

Doctor of Thinkology
Feb 23, 2006
21,155
149
63
But what we're seeing here is what Obama described as negotiating with suicide bombers. The executives of these companies are prepared to take down the economy if they don't get their own way. In the end everyone is stuck with the greedy buggers, like it or not. That's the way the system works.
 

Toro

Senate Member
May 24, 2005
5,468
109
63
Florida, Hurricane Central
This is one of the dumbest pieces of legislation in a long time. Never mind that it is probably unconstitutional, why would a company participate in the government programs designed to kickstart the economy when the bozos in Congress can just change the terms of contracts on a whim? The government wants to attract private capital to help clear up the logjam of bad debt in the financial system. Why would a money manager participate if he thinks Congress might jack up his taxes to 90%?

What a terrible precedent. It just reinforces the argument that the Democrat party is clueless about business and the economy.
 

Albertabound

Electoral Member
Sep 2, 2006
555
2
18
The politicians, including O'Bama, approved the bonuses. What a bunch of hypocrites.

Exactly, everyone is ready to linch these exec. but no one is looking at the government that approved it all in the first place. Designed by choice. These bills are passed through with out anyone ever actually looking at them. Not thoroughly any way, but now everyone wants the AIG heads to roll. Maybe some congress heads should rolls with them
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
73
48
Why would a money manager participate if he thinks Congress might jack up his taxes to 90%?

The money manager has no choice. The US Gov't, because of handouts in the past, owns a deciding portion of AIG (about 80% of the company) actually make that US taxpayers OWN AIG. If US taxpayers don't want money lent to AIG to go to retentin bonuses..then they have the right to decide how that money is spent