Insurance giant AIG to pay $165 million in bonuses
WASHINGTON – American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars.
AIG is paying out the executive bonuses to meet a Sunday deadline, but the troubled insurance giant has agreed to administration requests to restrain future payments.
Ok, I think its time people get strung up. tarred and feathered. tossed in the river... or whatever.
If I see one of these guys, they'll get a punch in the nose, and a swift kick in the arse.
KyCardinalFan wrote:Apropos of nothing, what are these entitltments that politicians and economists keep bringing up as the next problem or real problem. Entitlement to what and for whom? What are the two sides of the issue?
Entitlement is the sense that one feels when one takes himself too seriously.
NEW YORK - President Barack Obama said Monday the government will try to block millions of dollars in bonuses for American International Group Inc. executives, calling the payments "an outrage to the taxpayers" who bailed out the giant insurer.
"In the last six months, AIG has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury. I've asked Secretary Geithner to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole," Obama said.
The president was speaking as he unveiled plans to help small businesses.
In his remarks, he said AIG _ which has benefited from more than $170 billion in federal rescue funding and is 80 percent owned by taxpayers _ is a company in distress due to "recklessness and greed."
"Under these circumstances, it's hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?" the president said.
suppose they don't get this [expletive] bonus money back - after Obama has spoken out about it?. that will say the govt can't touch these businesses. Obama's clout could be severely weakened -with AIG can taking taxpayers money and abusing it for personal gain, and then hiding behind lawyers. maybe its time to sidestep the normal process of law on this.
this AIG -Liddy dude should be in jail.
Petty thieves and people that rob from Convenience stores do hard jail time. why are the white collar criminals not? - no need to answer that facetious question.
In his most recent column Krugman says European governments and the European Central Bank aren't doing enough.
This is a major reason for the lack of fiscal action: there’s no government in a position to take responsibility for the European economy as a whole. What Europe has, instead, are national governments, each of which is reluctant to run up large debts to finance a stimulus that will convey many if not most of its benefits to voters in other countries.
My question is, could they even do this if they wanted to? The US is fortunate that the rest of the world sees the safest investment out there these days to be US Treasury bonds. We have a way of financing this stimulus, more or less. Are the European central banks even in a position to finance huge stimulus spending?
G. Keenan wrote:In his most recent column Krugman says European governments and the European Central Bank aren't doing enough.
This is a major reason for the lack of fiscal action: there’s no government in a position to take responsibility for the European economy as a whole. What Europe has, instead, are national governments, each of which is reluctant to run up large debts to finance a stimulus that will convey many if not most of its benefits to voters in other countries.
My question is, could they even do this if they wanted to? The US is fortunate that the rest of the world sees the safest investment out there these days to be US Treasury bonds. We have a way of financing this stimulus, more or less. Are the European central banks even in a position to finance huge stimulus spending?
I would think they could individually, although certainly not to the extent of the U.S. Cumulatively, they could have quite an impact. But countries such as Germany are hesitant to lower interest rates or run deficits because of a fear of hyperinflation, based on what happened in the 1920's.
It sounds like Krugman is describing a classic free-rider problem, in which countries and banks don't take actions in which they bear most of the costs (deficits, risks of inflation), but can't monopolize the benefits.
On Tuesday morning, it was Rick Santelli's turn to downplay the outrage. The CNBC host of 'rewarding-the-housing-market-losers' fame, urged the masses to show some perspective. After all, this was mere "millions" of dollars engendering the bonus-driven anger, as opposed to the "billions" that AIG has received in bailout bucks. From CNBC's Squawk Box:
SANTELLI: Now, think about it this way. Maybe I'm missing something. But the outrage seems to be about M's, millions of dollars, right? $165 million, OK?
But I would think that it should be looked at as a pretty big positive, because when you go from the M, maybe you should try to go to the B's, which is the billions of dollars, and maybe that's going to even enlighten it for the T, trillions of dollars. You know, $165 million is like worrying about 16.5 cents, while $165 maybe necessitates a little more outrage. What do you guys think?
BECKY QUICK: Hey, Rick, I think the real idea here is just the idea of rewarding bad behavior, which is something you've spoken out against in the past.
SANTELLI: No, I guess what I'm saying is it's an order of magnitude. Don't you think this dynamic that the average guy reading his newspaper is really starting to be in tune with this?
And I think bonuses really strike a cord as to the dynamic you're talking about. But there's many degrees of intensity if one really wants to shine the light on the money that's being scrutinized. You know, there's Ms, Bs and Ts. I just want to know what people think.
On Tuesday morning, it was Rick Santelli's turn to downplay the outrage. The CNBC host of 'rewarding-the-housing-market-losers' fame, urged the masses to show some perspective. After all, this was mere "millions" of dollars engendering the bonus-driven anger, as opposed to the "billions" that AIG has received in bailout bucks. From CNBC's Squawk Box:
SANTELLI: Now, think about it this way. Maybe I'm missing something. But the outrage seems to be about M's, millions of dollars, right? $165 million, OK?
But I would think that it should be looked at as a pretty big positive, because when you go from the M, maybe you should try to go to the B's, which is the billions of dollars, and maybe that's going to even enlighten it for the T, trillions of dollars. You know, $165 million is like worrying about 16.5 cents, while $165 maybe necessitates a little more outrage. What do you guys think?
BECKY QUICK: Hey, Rick, I think the real idea here is just the idea of rewarding bad behavior, which is something you've spoken out against in the past.
SANTELLI: No, I guess what I'm saying is it's an order of magnitude. Don't you think this dynamic that the average guy reading his newspaper is really starting to be in tune with this?
And I think bonuses really strike a cord as to the dynamic you're talking about. But there's many degrees of intensity if one really wants to shine the light on the money that's being scrutinized. You know, there's Ms, Bs and Ts. I just want to know what people think.
If the average employee, including benefits, costs $150k per year for AIG, that's 1100 AIG employees that could still have jobs instead of a handful of directors having some extra cash.
