by Rich Miles
There's an article in today's New York Times that, in essence, makes it clear that, come Hell or high water, AIG is going to pay $165 million in bonuses to executives of its financial services division, despite the obvious truth that these morons drove the company into the ground, and have had, so far, to be bailed out by the government to the tune of about $170 BILLION.
The basic premise of the article is that AIG HAS to pay these bonuses, because of contractual obligations entered into before the company's collapse. Well, that all sounds right and honorable, until you read the part about this money being "retention bonuses", to get the executives to stay at the company. Which brings to my mind at least the two following questions:
1) Why would you want to retain executives that killed your company, and damn near took the entire national economy down the toilet as well? Let 'em go, fer cryin' out loud, and
2) Where are these mugs going to go? If you refuse to pay their "retention bonuses", and they quit in a fit of pique, WHERE ELSE CAN THEY GO in this market atmosphere to do any better? Who's going to hire the architects of one of the greatest financial collapses in the history of the WORLD, much less America? I mean, can you imagine their resumes? "I took down one of the biggest companies in America. Let me do the same for your company!"
So obviously, as usual I'm missing something here. What *I* think I'm missing is the "old boy network camaraderie", that will cause these guys to take care of each other no matter how big fuckups they are.
Yeah, you can't let a former classmate at Yale or Harvard or whatnot fall by the wayside just because he's an incompetent boob. I mean, that would ultimately harm ALL incompetent boobs. And might even lead to the imprisonment of one or two of them. Like, for instance, GWB II. He was/is the ultimate incompetent boob raised to a level far above his competence. Can't have HIM called to task for his mistakes. God knows what that will mean to the rest of them.
The average American taxpayer (whatever "average" means in that context) is being reamed up the ass with a hot poker, and all these idiots can think about is "retention bonuses".
What can we do about this? I'm open to suggestion. But I'm just sick about this. And you should be too.
2 comments:
Gee, I wonder what happens to "union contracts" when the company goes belly up ?
AIG's disgusting actions are a perfect example of socialism for the rich and capitalism for everybody else. They cannot be justified or defended. At a time where millions of Americans are out of work, severely underemployed, or with frozen wages, and others are in foreclosure or homeless, for these already overpaid assholes to even get a penny for a bonus is criminal, and an insult to every taxpayer in the country. What a bunch of self-centered, myopic PIGS!
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