AIG: “Retention” Payments for Leaving?!?!?!
I wanted to make one more point about the revelation from Andrew Cuomo’s letter to Barney Frank that some of those getting "retention" bonuses are gone from AIG.
Eleven of the individuals who received "retention" bonuses of $1 million or more are no longer working at AIG, including one who received $4.6 million;
"Retention" bonuses for those who left? That’s even nuttier than paying the guys who broke the global finance system millions for staying!
Here’s what AIG said about the purpose of those bonuses.
In the first quarter of 2008, AIGFP adopted a retention plan for about 400 employees that provided guaranteed payments to employees if they worked through specified payment dates (or either resigned for good reason or was terminated without cause before the relevant dates). At the time, AIGFP was expected to have a valuable, on-going role at AIG. The plan was implemented because there was a significant risk of departures among employees at AIGFP, and given the $2.7 trillion of derivative positions at AIGFP at that time, retention incentives appeared to be in the best interest of all of AIG’s stakeholders.
Now, we still don’t know shit about these contracts–even Cuomo, who has at least seen the contracts, doesn’t know who got them. But assuming this white paper is not lying (which I wouldn’t guarantee), then the people who have left AIG but got the "retention" bonuses fall into one of three categories:
- Still employed by AIGFP as of a specified payment date, but left after that date
- Terminated without cause
- Resigned "for good reason"–whatever that means
In other words, either they’ve got the retention bonuses tied to dates that mature long before the bonuses themselves do (which seems unlikely, but so do these bonuses more generally), some of these 11 people were terminated without cause even knowing they’d get humongous bonuses anyway, or they resigned "for good reason." Since the first two seem so stupid, I’m going to guess that these 11 people fall into the last category (but that’s just a wildarsed guess).
So what does "for good reason" mean?
Leaving for health reasons is the only one I can think of, right off hand. I’d hope that ‘bonuses’ would also involve, you know, making money and doing a good job for the company, not just showing up for work when you feel like it.
Ummm, because your work was so fraudulent you are likely to be sued, so the company thinks you have good reason to leave and take the lawyers hounding you with you?
Or how ’bout, because you ripped off the mob and they are looking to get even, so you quit for good reason to go into hiding in Cheney’s favorite undisclosed locations?
Or maybe it’s because AIG needed plants in other firms to make more fraudulent deals, so you left for good reason to help set up more counterparty agreements with AIG?
The mind boggles at the possibilities…
cold busted
OT
Update on Schlozman’s fate
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi….._schlo.php
An interesting item for one of your timelines. Retention bonuses are usually forfeit on leaving the company; like the church lottery, if you’re not there to collect, you don’t collect.
HR depts have a habit of tracking such things closely, because if you mistakenly pay out, it’s the devil to get it back.
Did AIG knowingly pay out to boys about to leave, or did many of its best and brightest blow town as soon as the check cleared?
That’s often true even if the “bonus” was deemed earned but not yet payable before the employee left. What’s missing, apart from the terms of all the contracts, is that many of these related to employees working in London, whose contracts would have been subject to English contracts law and statutory employee protections, not the more lenient law of New York or Connecticut.
Even so, the argument about “sanctity of contracts” is, in part, a shiny object. It’s an old conservative meme popular at the turn of the 19th century. A constricted view of it kept contract law from keeping up with societal changes and from recognizing the inherently unequal bargaining power of employer and employed.
Contracts can be challenged for a host of reasons. Scott Horton cited a few days ago. It doesn’t seem like AIG’s managers or its board, or Geithner or Summers, gave that a thought. They’ve focused on how to implement, not challenge them.
Right. Which suggests this is more about bribery to keep their traders from bringing down the whole system. They WANT to pay these bonuses, jsut as Geithner WANTS them to be paid.
AIG’s “system” has or is crashing, as is this entire business line. I supposes the wider financial system hasn’t yet crashed, but it must be deeply discounting the instruments at issue here. Which suggests the wider market for these instruments has crashed, but everybody is pretending otherwise until each player gets a fix on its own losses. Market players also need to replace the business of writing these instruments with something else at considerably lower initial profits.
What’s going on here reminds me of sorting out checking fraud schemes, where a rogue customer writes a series of bogus checks, each temporarily covering checks written earlier in the scam. It works until one bank catches on and drops out of the loop. That bank plays the clearing process as tightly as possible, trying to collect payment on checks it’s tendered while refusing payment on ones drawn on it. When that hits the fed clearing system, the house of cards tumbles.
MSNBC’s commentariat’s shilling of “the right” or “the moral” thing to do here, e.g., sanctify the contract or return the bonus payments, is laughable. It’s like waiting for Charlie Gibson or Brian Williams to admit to shoddy reporting. Waiting for Godot would be more productive.
There’s a terrible financial mess out there and it needs to be cleared up and the people are angry at silliness like bonuses for failing companies. While Republicans might try to take advantage of this moment to bash Obama it is the public anger which should lift Democrats in Congress as they regulate regulate regulate the financial industry.
This shall be a real stress test. Do not turn off your Internet.
AIG knew when it paid these bonuses that its derivatives operation was toasted. There was no ongoing business to salvage, only its proper winding up. Which means there were blessed few bodies to retain.
This seems more like a case of a passel of financial Grinches, “leaving crumbs much too small for the other Whos’ mouses.”
That all assumes this is a normal retention bonus, right (and I ask that sincerely)?
Do normal retention bonus contracts include this “for good reason” language?
No, employees who leave of their own accord for any reason usually forfeit compensation not already paid. There are exceptions, such as for stock awards already granted and received. But if you leave the day before you receive the grant, tough. In most cases, your ability to use options also expires on termination, even if they’ve been granted and could have been exercised the day before termination. Same with bonuses earned but not yet paid.
Companies don’t ordinarily give employees any say in how they structure bonuses. Then again, Wall Street is different in the intensity and reach of its self-serving arrangements. It retains elements of partnership arrangements, even in companies that long ago morphed into corporations. And it leads in treating all compensation as mandatory, not contingent, which is what the idea of a bonus means to most employees worldwide.
That said, few people outside of AIG have seen these contracts. And this obscure division in London and Connecticut, as was true of the riskiest traders at Enron, created the bulk of the faux profits AIG depended on. So it would be no surprise if the board allowed management to write these with terms more common in a CEO’s contracts than a top salesperson’s.
MSNBC all day has been pushing the Andrew Sorkin/Larry Summers meme about sanctity of contracts. The shilling for the Street and against the Obama administration is really stark. I guess it’s what good neighbors do.
See, I’m thinking there’s a big fat spider hidden under that phrase “for good reason.”
Maryb2004 made some good points. I’ve only seen “good reason” language in CEO or SVP kinds of contracts, where the company seems to consider that as the employer, it has less (or little or no) leverage with the would be executive.
Ditto with golden parachutes that of late I have only seen with very high-level execs, and which have this sort of clause, along with various “change of control” provisions that can also trigger paying the parachute. These are often used in connection with buy-outs, where the new owner often has an incentive to toss the old execs once it’s figured out how to run things.
AIG seems to have treated this division as if it was running the company, or at least as the fulcrum on which everything else rested. Pair that with AIG’s admissions in its securities filings that it had inadequate controls – for such a critical, bet the company business unit – and you could well have a board and managers playing outside the business judgment rule. Which can carry personal liability. I would not want to be AIG’s D&O insurer.
I’m already tired of this talking point. My answer is, “What contracts? We haven’t seen any contracts. Go ahead and show us, the taxpayers (who own 80% of your company), where it says that we have to pay you millions of dollars. Seriously, show us.” And no, we’re not willing to just take your CEO’s word for it that we owe you millions of dollars.
My husband will be paid a retention bonus in three years at his company. (Not even close to millions) If he leaves prior to the retention date he does NOT receive the bonus. It can’t be a retention bonus if it is still paid out when someone leaves. The whole point it to reward and retain their services, in this small corner of the world anyway.
Ah, Supercapitalism strikes again.
http://www.randomhouse.com/kno…..0307265616
It’s hush money.
Yes of course, hush money. A trader questions the ethics at some point, he is then promised millions to go along anyway, cos y’know there’s plenty millions to go around. If he ISN’T paid, for whatever reason, like the new owners cancel the contract, his lips are likely to loosen up. So…”Geithner WANTS them to be paid.” Of course.
Carvill on CNN: ”this thing has caught fire out in the country.”
Carville: ”holding taxpayers hostage.”
So, did these bonuses amount to golden parachutes?
Or was this Geithner’s way of cleaning out the AIGFP division?
By the way, I like to use the phrase “Bailout bagging banker barons” to describe these guys. I still want to see all their names, in headlines, in major papers.
Bob in HI
Sort of OT, but this person has an interesting site re ongoing financial fun and games.
‘Last Tuesday, February 24, 2009, the Congressional Research Service published a 40 page report, “Who Regulates Whom? An Overview of U.S. Financial Supervision” (Mark Jickling, Edward Murphy, CRS, February 24, 2009) As the title suggests, the report is a primer on the parts of the US financial system, and who regulates which part.’
‘There’s just one thing: it does not mention the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation. In fact, it does not mention securities settlement.
Does that seem strange?’
http://www.deepcapture.com/it-…..n-i-laugh/
Nothing I am seeing contradicts the idea that there has been crime and people are being pursuaded to be quiet. Who knows what other threats are being made … so ”just take the money and you’ll be okay.”
Every day I hear something new that supports this view. And I hear NOTHING that supports an alternate view.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Agreed.
A bucket of icy cold water, to clear your heads.
Courtesy the one guy who knows so much about AIG, that he knew too much.
Holy shit.
I’d had a hunch this was the blur in the background, but to have Spitzer Himself confirm it is a bit sobering.
You like that? Check this out. Masaccio emailed this earlier
AIG as an institution knew the whole pooch was screwed, that they had been operating on fudged, fraudulent, and made up out of thin air numbers; basically that the whole thing was fucked up and putting the FP division, and entire company (since the main company is a signed guarantor of the FP division) in jeopardy.
They. Knew.
And, yet, AIG and the people in the FP division intentionally, deceptively and fraudulently (to shareholders and now taxpayers) agreed to set the compensation for the very people who had created the problem at 2007 levels, i.e. before the bubble was known to be completely bursting.
Well, thanks — and as you well know, masaccio is one of my heros!
Here’s my take: ‘we don’t have a f*cking clue what this sh*t is worth, and we don’t know how to get a handle on the assholes we hired to write it, sell it, and tweak it — which, since it was all so lucrative, didn’t actually trouble us until we started to see it might cost us unimaginable sums of money.
So we’re putting ‘procedures’ in place so that when the sh*t really starts hitting the fan at least it will look like we tried to do something. Oh, and Hank Paulson is our BFF.
bmaz, any time you’d like to pull out and dust off one of those, ‘Time to revise the legal statutes defining a ‘corporation,’ a ‘limited liability corporation’, posts at which you excel, I’ll be your most avid reader.
“Here’s my take: ‘we don’t have a f*cking clue what this sh*t is worth, and we don’t know how to get a handle on the assholes we hired to write it, sell it, and tweak it — which, since it was all so lucrative, didn’t actually trouble us until we started to see it might cause us some trouble.”
Very nice translation. You should open a translation store. You’d make a fortune…
Glad to see he’s hanging around. Same thing I had in mind in 37,44,76 of the last thread: If you want to know where this ought to be going, the period 2008 up to the first bailout announcement is the place to dig.
I can only read Spitzer’s piece in chunks. Ugh.
I think we are going to see the mother of all take-downs of what amounts to a criminal ‘family’.
The ‘paper/money/evidence’ trail leading to and from these people is getting bigger with each revelation*.
As more ‘middle’ men get caught in up in ‘on-going’ criminal/legal investigations, more will roll and it will roll up-hill.
Hmmm, I wonderhow long before the big DC lawyers* have to excuse themselves from handling ‘more cases’ because of conflict of interest/connection of interest’??
I see the ‘bad guys’ running out of access to *bent* lawyers and having to deal with straight lawyers. That would move things along nicely. LOL..
The same underlying theme in the Bush Administration is ever so apparent in this 0bama criminal enterprise. The theme is corruption. What is needed is a full scale RICCO investigation of the Bush and the follow on 0bama operation. Subpoenas should be issued. This eupemism for extortion or criminal behavior is called a “bailout”. How quaint! Everybody always talked about how stupid Bush was, or how inexperienced 0bama is or what ever word they try to attach to this crime syndicate. It is criminal. It is corrupt to the core. The last three elections were criminal. And now we have the wholesale looting of the entire government. Bush used Iraq War, Katrina, etc to loot by schemes with the contractors. 0bama just uses the Treasury Dept to just transfer the wealth thru direct deposit. No mess, very few middle men. Clever. Hope and Change. Biggest JOKE ever!!!!
That fill in some blanks, but we knew AIG was/is a criminal enterprise already didn’t we?
The first 100 day of Obama are not looking all that pretty. He really needs to do something extraordinary here.
The anger and resentment over this needs to be addressed with significant action, not more words and promises.
Let me get this straight. You work hard to drive a company into massive default and you become a millionare after you leave for whatever reason.
Heck, I need work like that. I work for an hourly wage. If I personally did something to cause my company to fail and have to beg the government for money, they would screw me out of my last paycheck.
Where is the outrage? I don’t give a flying f*ck what kind of excuse they gave for these bonuses. Get ‘em back. Tax ‘em to death. Do whatever is necessary to get the taxpayers money back. Also, the money they gave away counts as stock for US taxpayers. WE OWN THEIR ASSES!
American business is morally and financially corrupt.
Ummm…that means leaving to work on the $185 Billion AIG bailout with Timbo Geithner over at Treasury.
Shorter AIG: “Hey, if Goldman Sachs can do it, why can’t we?”
Told to get out of town before the subpoenas?
Had to get out of the country before the arrest warrant
some of these 11 people were terminated without cause even knowing they’d get humongous bonuses anyway,
Shush money
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen emptywheel and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Enough of this shit…I know Obama and his Clintonistas in his treasury “brain trust” are tryin ta play footsie with the financial sector to get ‘em ta let go of some a the cash they stole from us and lend it to consumers and small business but this is it…enough already…nationalize the motherfuckers, get the books open and track every single scumbag down who ever had anythin’ ta do with the dirivitives operation and pass a bill taxin’ 100% of the bonuses. Then tell the remainin mega banks that they are next startin’ with Citi.
When is Obama gunna realize that these bastards are NOT nice freedom loving folks and don’t want what is best for the United States or the world??…and when, for God’s sake, is he gunna figure out that the Clintonistas have lost their chops and are only gunna triangulate the administration and the country back to 1860??!!
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN AMMUNITION…NO MORE MR NICE GUY!!!
I think either one more big drop on Wallstreet, one ore set of banks failing, or a milita guy with Uranium attacks America and Obama will have all the political capital he needs to do whats right despite the GOP/DLC.
That is my hope at least. Until then I keep trying to push him Left.
Hilary would be President now if she went left on the war and healthcare I hope Obama does not make her mistake.
Did these contracts contain anything about not talking to the press, congress the blogs about the payoffs and or what really goes on at AIG?
Don’t forget to Digg!
At about 6PM, NPR reported that Credit Default Swaps serve a valuable function and they will make a big comeback to serve that valuable function.
NPR is a Liberal Bastion. /s
OK NPR has drunk the cool aid
Hell, NPR always toes the fascist line. Nothing new really.
Defending Credit Default Swaps is not crossing a line thats becoming Mayor of Crazy town. I want those things banned. We can’t bailout that market we do not have the cash.
/s means snark, right?! Phewww…
Paying retention bonuses may not only be for “staying”, and could be for “staying quiet”???
That’s what the smart people who aren’t full of shit are saying.
Now that NPR is in the tank for the status quo and the Republicans you never hear anyone on the right talking about defunding NPR. Curious. It’s time the left talk start talking about defunding NPR and sending their conservative sycophants to the unemployment lines. I haven’t contributed to these capitalist stooges for over 8 years.
For those who can stomach it, Sorkin’s on Hardball with Mika.
The word on the street is that short selling is (and has been) the way to big gains on Wall Street. When short selling is the word on the street, its time to go long.
Depends on how long your portfolio is.
thanks that’s a very clear chart.
Did that come straight from STREET.COM?
I thought what was interesting was the statement that AIG had sold $2.7 trillion in swaps positions by the first quarter of 2008. How many positions does it currently hold? And seriously how could anyone at AIG allow (except criminally) a position this size to be taken with no real reserves to cover it in the event of a downturn? The sheer size of the position cries fraud, negligence, lack of due diligence and failure of fiduciary obligation.
Add in very good liqeurs of your choice, as well as some good cocaine and other drugs of choice, I rather suspect. This sure looks like addictive behavior (from a distance, at any rate).
Via Barry @ Big Picture
Bush needed a bubble.
Greenspan created teh ownership society.
Loans for everyone. Whoever.
Enter Sub-Prime.
Banks and scammers loan. And sell loans to mortgage back securities companies.
Who in turn go public.
AAA on top, BBB on the bottom. All rolled up into one.
Ratings agencies crap their pants. Give em AAA ratings one and all.
Hegde funders smile and short em.
Make big bets with the Goldman Sachs or Deutsche Bank.
More and more bets coming in. Way more than the loans.
Shit hits fan. Got to pay off those “bets”.
The End
I don’t know who these guys are that are getting the bonuses but I am certain that they are only little greedy bastards caught in a web of their own making. And may they rot.
NPR’s defense of CDSs or the NewsHour having Andrew Sorkin on defending AIG bonuses shows what a high noise to signal ratio we have. Rather than putting on people who have a clue about what is going on or what needs to be done, the media continue to put on at least one nutcase, and usually several, to balance one reasonably serious analyst.
The Holocaust Industrial Complex is an exploitation of mass murder by fake Khazarian Zionist Jews like Maurice “Hank” Greenberg of AIG of real Jews in an effort to bring about a tyrannical communist dictatorship run by bankers. It gets worse. I recommend looking into the construction of the new Supreme Court building Israel.
Yet another fox in charge of the hen house.
So Citi’s chief economist is going to work for Geithner? Yes, that is going to work out real well.
the only thing AIG should be retaining is more lawyers.
What I wonder about is what’s really going on that they have to roll out a spectacle like this to distract us.
Emmanuel sez Geithner’s job is not in jeopardy over AIG bonuses.
Which Fineman sez means Geithner’s job is in jeopardy
I knew my e-mails would work. Every day I send one and it’s paid off. s/
I think that Obama is going to stick with Summers and Geithner right over the cliff.
BTW have you noticed all the happy talk, maybe we have hit the bottom, recovery could be coming, yadda, yadda, yadda, recently?
Yeah the happy talk is obvious. The week before my Dad went bankrupt in 1974, he said, “I’ve got fantastic credit with my bank.”
We’re a bankrupt nation in denial…
Happy Talk, yes. But they’re telling people they should short sell. I have never heard anyone – not even Cramer, ever – tell John Q Public to do what they do (its made Cramer his millions) short the market.
The market has made gains every day since they started telling people to short sell.
Yes, I’ve noticed and no, I ain’t believing it for a millisecond!
FunnyD
They’re doing that, but we don’t believe it or them.
It reminds me of Bush41’s recession. He kept telling us things were getting better, even while they were still getting worse.
DC bubbleheads. Clueless to the end.
I think I need to go looking for torches this weekend. (I have the pitchfork.)
Turley “It’s very hard to make this cat walk backwards”. “If you give money to the Pirates of Penzantz you can’t be shocked when they buy women and grog”!
I could back a grog-tax….
Read this to see the size of all derivatives out there:
http://www.siliconvalleywatche…..of_der.php
he pegs it at 1,400 trillion dollars or $190,000 for every person on earth at this moment.
*Aack* … Bush was allowed into Canada ?
Here’s hoping the Minutemen allow him back into Murkah !
No, no, Petro. According to the Convention, we’re supposed to keep him and begin the investigation/prosecution. It’s our duty.
*smacks forehead* … now I get it … carefully puts down the Cafferty Draught …
I’m reminded of the alleged statement of Paulson’s to the effect that if company exec’s couldn’t find loopholes big enough to drive Brinks trucks through, they had no business running such companies….
Reply to eCAHN @ 53
Citigroup has been one of the Bush Family’s favorite banks. If we could imagine a worst-case scenario – the most intertwined, interdependent, nefarious, clandestine corruption imaginable – then it only makes sense that Obama would protect Citi from crashing by doing whatever it takes.
Once you get over the outrage, stop, consider the amount of damage they’ve done and entertain the possibility that paying them to go away might just make the most sense.
( — interlude of self-hypnosis –)
Nope can’t do it.
If more of the ugly stuff bubbles up…. and it will… Obi will be labeled as complicit unless he stands with the outraged public.
The lack of fairness, the absence of accountability and even simple due diligence with the tax payer’s money is looking like throwing good money after bad.
Obi tried to get the Rs on board with his “programs” – failed.
He also tried to get some capitalists pigs on board to “fix” things – that’s failing
He’s tied himself to unpopular Bush policies on the WOT, (Afghanistan) and military spending. He can’t even cancel the stupid helicopter or the missle shield which never worked in the first place and he wants to give more $$ to the DOD.
Change we can believe in – Si Se Puede my culo.
Obama is doing both. He’s complicit as he stands with the public in outrage.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain…”
among the things which should be unlawful is short selling.
Short selling is a reasonable proposition in modern trading. Its the naked short selling that is the huge problem.
Naked shorting is illegal. But there are no penalties.
Making something illegal but having no penalties. That always works well, huh? Ask my 8 yr old.
Nicely summed up, hackworth.
Marcy, I often see employment agreements that have “good reason” clauses in them. It is a protection for the employee against the employer who wants to end an employment relationship where no “cause” exists to fire the employee and so the employer tries to force the employee to resign. The employer wants to avoid paying what is due to an employee who is fired “without cause” and usually that can be avoided if the employee is forced to resign. The “good reason” clause says that if the employee resigns for “good reason” the employee gets the same payments as if the employee was terminated “without cause”. Most people see it as a protection against the unreliable corporate employer who might try to screw you by changing your job description or keeping your job description but moving you out of the executive offices thereby making it impossible to do your job or just transferring you to timbuktu.
The definition of “good reason” is always negotiated and is usually only found in high level executive agreements where the person has some leverage to negotiate. Here is a typical starting point in the negotiation: “for good reason” means any of the following: (a) The Employer’s material breach of this Agreement; (b) the assignment of the Executive without his consent to a position, responsibilities, or duties of a materially lesser status or degree of responsibility than his position, responsibilities, or duties at the Effective Date; or (c) the relocation of the Employer’s principal executive offices outside the metropolitan [_______________, _______________] area; or (d) the requirement by the Employer that the Executive be based anywhere other than the Employer’s principal executive offices, in either case without the Executive’s consent.
Here it is from the Times
“But administration officials conceded that almost all of the most recent round of bonuses, totaling $165 million, had been paid last Friday, one day before the Treasury publicly acknowledged that it had reluctantly approved the payouts.”
I wonder what twists and turns in the cosmic fabric resulted in Dana “Pig-missle” Perino sallying forth to defend the AIG bonuses?
hah. well said!
by the way, I’m guessing the 11 people fall into category number 1. I’ve seen a lot of retention agreements. The employee agrees to stay with the company until a specified date (sometimes it is tied to an event). Once the date occurs, if the employee is still employed the employee has earned the bonus. It might not be payable until a later date but the employee doesn’t have to stick around in order to collect it.
It happens a lot with a company that is up for sale. The owners need certain mgmt employees to stay on through a sale date or the buyers want to guarantee that the old mgmt will stay through a certain transition period. Once the date is hit, the employee is free to quit. But will still get the bonus on the specified bonus payment date.
Whoa, you guys are SO going to get indicted for this! Dude, I’m outa here!
I’m telling you, everybody get out there tomorrow and protest vehemently with signs calling for geithner and summers to be fired (http://takebacktheeconomy.org/). this outrage must be followed by action or else they will never respect/fear it. This must be followed by action, or they’ll just pat us on the head and tell us what a great country this is becoz we have the freedom of speech … but no effect on anything.
Z
OT – News wrt one of Jane’s least favorite DINOs via the WaPo:
And Ellen while knows nada, zip, zero about arms control and nonproliferation, getting her butt out of Congress is probably a plus.
Maybe she’s going to get put in some position where she has to either admit she’s clueless and quit (leaving her out of both Congress and the State Dept) or where she’ll be rendered harmless to the rest of us. (We can hope.)
Sorry to say… the AIG bonus issue is suppose to be cathartic AND a distraction from how things go on in this country. How many other systems of unjustified reward exist?
So we are about to drill down to the management of retirement funds.
Anyone hear what the Repubs are suggesting be done about this? It HAS to be crickets.
It’s time for some Gooper Judo!
The Goopers want to embarrass Obama by using the AIG Retention Bonuses to show his ‘incompetence.’
That’s fine. Turnabout is fair play.
The Dems should summon the AIG FP Traders, and the AIG Executive Management Team from the Feb. 2008 time-frame, to Congress – next week, if possible.
On camera, in front of America, those AIG Thugs should be made to give the Whole History of the ‘retention bonuses’ for 2008.
Why? Because those Traders knew that 2008 was going to be a Tank Year before it happened – and then they wrote their “Too Clever to Stop Us” Retention Bonuses – tied to their 2007 bonus levels – which they then Steered All the Way Through the Bailout.
I guarantee there’s a Story in there – a story of calculated and conspiratorial Greed – that All Took Place on Bush’s Watch – involving AIG, Goldman-Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Paulson and Bush.
So, we parade those Arrogant AIG Criminals in front of the cameras – and Nothing Good can happen for the Goopers – but We might, at long last, begin to see into the Massive Incompetence and Ciminal Culpability of the Bush Administration, who dumped this on US.
If I had to guess, and it’s just a guess, I’d say the entire Financial System ‘broke’ sometime in late 2007/early 2008. However, rather than deal with it then, the Bush Administration directed ‘key’ players on Wall Street to ‘cook the books’ until the new administration came in, and – guess what? – “I’ll even get you a Big Bailout, with no strings attached, and no liability, too, before I leave.”
Doesn’t that sound just like something Bush would do?
Let’s have the Goopers join US in finding out the Truth – in the bi-partisan spirit of cleaning-up Wall Street for the good of America!
I have participated in the preparation of a number of “retention offers.” In every case it was in exchange for the recipient agreeing to stay, and offered because the recipient was an employee who was expected to do exceptional service to the institution.
These AIG “retention bonuses” seem to have nothing to do with merit (in the service of the institution) and nothing to do with the long-term interest of the instution. Instead they seem to be good-old-boys slipping taxpayer dollars to good-old-boys.
IMHO, we shouldn’t, and don’t need to, put up with that.