Not on the Bonus Burning Bandwagon

Forums: Politics, Economy, Aig, Bonus Scandal
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Now I will never receive a seven figure bonus and I can’t figure out why a company would ever agree to pay one, but with that being said, I’m just not on the Bonus Bashing bandwagon yet. It’s not that I think AIG is great. It’s not that I’m especially sympathetic with the downward spiral that the formally high riding AIG folks are on. The real reason that I can’t yet bring myself to go looking for my torch and pitchfork is that we really don’t know squat about these bonuses… and neither do the congressmen building ever higher soap boxes from which to denounce them.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 4 • Views: 1,868 • Replies: 6

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it's funny all the talk of a minimum wage, the need for a living wage, it works both ways, i've said for years we need a maximum wage, put that money back into the companies

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Again in case anybody missed it...

AIG was looking at something like 3T in liabilities and the people responsible for the grief were gone. The people you're reading about now are top gun types who've been assigned to bring the thing in as softly as possible, like in a glider landing. When a military glider lands of course its career is over and this is clearly a dead-end job, i.e. you're talking about top talent being given an assignment with which they're gauranteed to be out on the streets the day the assignment ends. The retention bonuses were meant to keep them there UNTIL the assignment ended.

What the dems (Frank, Dodd, Oinkbama et. al.) are doing now is dishonest (they knew about this **** early on), heinous since it exposes the AIG employees to danger, illegal since it involves what amounts to a bill of attainder, and colossally stupid since the dem party does not have anybody to replace these people when they leave prematurely as several of them apparently did yesterday citing personal safety as a reason.

This is the worst clown act I've ever seen in Washington and it's possible to say that after 100 days. This makes Jimmy Carter and SlicKKK KKKlintler look good in comparison.

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@Robert Gentel,

Agree. The torch and pitchfork reference seem appropriate, with the House seeming like a mob looking for a leader.

I hate these bonuses, by the way, but I've got too much pride to go around acting surprised. WSJ ran an article on contracts for bonuses in companies receiving TARP 1 funds. I do not recall if AIG was specifically mentioned, or not.

Different topic, Robert, but I think I'm going to have to concede the point on mark-to-market accounting. Not to say financial companies couldn't run a separate set of books for transparancy, though. The larger corporations have always has one set for tax purposes, and another for shareholders, the latter set adhering to GAAP.

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@roger,

Of course, a mob with a leader is a government. Harry Belefonte said that.

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@Robert Gentel,

The link represents a very rational approach that has absolutely no chance of being followed.

This affair should point out to us why we should not want to encourage politicized economics and government controlled economics is politicized economic.

If you watched the Sunday news shows you were treated to the spectacle of Charlie Rangel railing about greedy rule breakers.

This guy has to have the largest set of balls in the known universe.

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Quote:

As the Obama administration prepared to unveil major elements of its plan to address the global financial crisis, some of its leading economic officials reacted coolly to congressional actions to recoup bonuses from financial firms through targeted taxes, with one adviser saying the approach may be a "dangerous way to go."

While acknowledging the legitimacy of the public outcry over at least $165 million in bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, administration officials stopped far short of endorsing legislation passed last week by the House that would levy a 90 percent tax on the payments. The Senate is scheduled to take up a modified version of the measure this week.

"I think the president would be concerned that this bill may have some problems in going too far -- the House bill may go too far in terms of some -- some legal issues, constitutional validity, using the tax code to surgically punish a small group," Jared Bernstein, the top economic adviser to Vice President Biden, said on ABC's "This Week." "That may be a dangerous way to go."

Another top Obama economic official, Austan Goolsbee, echoed that view. "The president's also been clear we don't want to govern out of anger. He's going to look at what comes out of the House, what comes out of the Senate, see what ideas we have," Goolsbee, a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

source

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Not on the Bonus Burning Bandwagon

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