AIG said it wasn't going to pay bonuses. Well, it is not. It will be paying "cash awards" instead.

[Robbien]

per a diary at dKos

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.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/28/124722/13/881/667282

This has gotten very little press. Google has only one entry for this posted after hours on Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving. Article published online by Bloomberg " November 26, 2008 17:39 EST"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aRlALpvxQyZo&refer=home

The payments aren't bonuses the CEO says. They are retention payments.

They want to make sure they retain the guys who set up the ponzi schemes which are tanking the US economy.

[DireStrike]

1. The only way to stop this is to publicize it.

There is no way to legislate, or force them into not giving out bonuses.

The only counter is bad press.

God, this would be so much easier if there were even one firm that didn't behave like this.

[Robbien]

3. The last and only mention in the press was Wednesday night

That's all.

So the best thing to do now is make Barney Frank aware of it.

Congressman Barney Frank
2252 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]


And also contact your congresscritters.

[JDPriestly]

4. And what good will that do? Their customers are also their

cronies in the banks and other places, and they compete to receive and give the showiest bonuses. If the guys had been worth retaining, the bail-out would not have been necessary.

Congress should investigate the insurance business and break a lot of it up.

Regulation beats insurance any day.

[ShortnFiery]

2. Pigs at the Trough!?!

:grr:

http://www.amazon.com/Pigs-at-Trough-Arianna-Huffington/dp/1400047714


Arianna Huffington, popular pundit, columnist, and author, is not known for her polite criticisms or her carefully worded complaints. In the course of Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America, the corporate CEOs, accountants, politicians, and lobbyists at who she takes aim receive little relief from their porcine characterization first intimated in the book's title. And while she is full of invective for Enron's Kenneth Lay, Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, Dick Cheney, and others, she backs up her outrage with dollar figures, dates, names, and specific information. The voluminous research is made more digestible by Huffington's direct and often amusing writing style (she characterizes a CEO's process of getting a loan approved by a corporate board as being akin to Tony Soprano getting a loan from Paulie Walnuts). Interspersed between chapters are entertainingly informative sidebars, including quizzes on executives' avarice and games where you match the CEO to his yacht. Occasionally, Huffington's anger gets mired in name-calling, which deflates her points. And while she spends ample time and space outlining the particulars of a flawed power structure, she dedicates little time to offering practical solutions toward remedying the problems. But Huffington is not trying to write a political science textbook or a party platform. As a highly readable indictment of corporate and governmental excess, Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America is highly successful. --John Moe

[aquart]

5. Really? Where do they think they can go in the economy they created?

"Cash awards," my ass. They were told not to pull this crap. Nationalize them.

[sarcasmo]

6. This needs to be stopped. The level of Greed these people have has no end.

[quiet.american]

7. Hope Andrew Cuomo is getting as tired of this game of "double-dare chicken" as I am.

He's been warning AIG to cut out the cute stuff, and each time he does, they come back with another wise-ass end run.

[Az_lefty]

8. these sorry bastards caused this financial disaster and now their acting like the mob..

untouchable. Well, they need to be touched...by the new AG

[Poll_Blind]

9. Oh man you have GOT to be fucking kidding me...K&R!

PB

[MinneapolisMatt]

10. Sort of like...

MN's republican governor Tim Pawlenty.

He said he would never raise taxes, but when he had to, he created "fees" the taxpayers had to pay instead.


:puke:

[Telly Savalas]

11. Retention payments.

Since job growth in the financial sector is skyrocketing, I can only imagine how difficult it is for AIG compete with other firms to retain their employees.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go write some checks for a great Nigerian investment opportunity I found out about in an unsolicited email.

[Iodine99]

12. AIG bonuses

I think we are all being fed a Social Security/Medicare POISON PILL.

On page xvi in Worse Than Watergate, John Dean's book he says:
"Equally worthy of attention is their hidden agenda to end federal entitlement programs by running up budget-busting deficits while hiking military spending, which is bleeding the federal treasury and will ultimately result in their simply being no money available to pay for social programs after this administration is gone. These, of course, are programs such as Social Security and Medicare ---that they dare not eliminate."

My opinion:

REMEMBER - Dean says "after this administration is gone" - doesn't that tell us something!

The Republicans have tried to get rid of, or privatize Social Security and Medicare since 1937 when Alf Landon ran for president on the Republican ticket. Reagan wanted to either get rid or privatize it and there was such an outcry he raised the percentages we pay instead; Ford wanted to do so also. And GWB came in saying he would Privatize SS.

People need to research the Republican Party and Social Security/Medicare and write letters to the editor. They won't know this by listening to the so-called "Liberal Press".