AIG bonuses | Trap Shooters Forum
Discussion in 'Off Topic Threads' started by Bisi, Feb 4, 2010.
Well I see where AIG is going to give out a 100 million in bonuses. Even though they still owes the taxpayers of this country something like $125 BILLION (125,000,000,000). Now isn't that special!!
Now I know these bonuses are in their contract, but it still stinks to high heaven. That is just rubbing the taxpayers nose in it, if you ask me. There wouldn't be a damn AIG, or a job with that company, much less a bonus, if it weren't for the taxpayers bailing their rotten company out.
Giving bonuses to people who needed a bailout?? You need Billions upon billions to save you a** and then you expect a bonus?? Everything is screwed up in this country, there is a portion of the population living in fantasy land anymore. What happened to reality? Lose billions - you still get a bonus. The federal government is running Trillion dollar deficits and yet the average federal government employee makes 50 percent more than the average worker in private industry. Does this make any sense. When will they be asked to sacrifice? Do any of them get laid off.
Congressmen get sent to jail and still collect their pension. On and on it goes.
Meanwhile I can think of a half dozen local small business's open 20 years plus that have closed in the last year. Most walked away with nothing, nobody to bail them or their employees out. Every week the paper is just full of sheriff's sales.
A couple of weeks ago I seen a former neighbor's obit in the paper. He was only 47. I wondered what he died from? Found out a couple of days ago from a relative of his. He shot himself. He was a self employed carpenter who had been out of work for a long while. They said that was probably the reason.
I don't even know why I'm posting this, but it just seems that there are 2 sets of rules in this country anymore. The high and mighty screw up they get bailed out, the others....... Well hell they were nobodies anyway so......
Bisi, I feel your pain. Bush's bailout and Obama's stimulus are total B.S. and completely out of touch with commons sense.
Hey, LUCKYMAN!, it looks like I am not the only one who thinks the bailout and what it was used for was a crock of $^!+.
Bisi, no sass directed toward you, I am just trying to prove a point to Luckyman, because he thought the bailout was okay, compared to Obama's stimulus, because it is being paid back as he stated in one of his posts in bigunn's "Failed President" thread.
We all feel the same about that - however the contracts are legally binding and were not renegotiated as part of the bailout. But yes it is absolutely sickening and the people taking those bonuses should be ashamed of themselves. Like many americans, I had to take several weeks of furlow last year followed by a general pay cut. That was not what my contract with my company specifies but really what are my options? In my case it isn't worth a law suit because I don't get paid that much but when you are talking about several million dollars you get lawyers lining up to 'help' you. I'm just grateful to have a job and the reason my company survived and is recovering is because everybody took those cuts. I don't expect to get a bailout or any other kind of rescue.
Have there been any State employee union wages renegotiated in those states that received Stymulus money? No. Whats the difference? Those brokers for AIG have contracts too. Michigan's budget for instance was temporarily saved by Fed funds. Now they are right back where they were a year ago. No State employee wages have been cut/renegotiated. How many million are they overbudget?? True, our brainiac Congress should have applied conditions to the Bank Bailout Package and the Stymulus, but we now know what their main motive was.
Setterman.....Would mandatory time off with out pay qualify as changing a contract for state workers? After all it effectively reduces an employees per hour wages and required hrs for benefits.
If I were you I'd check all 50 states before saying No to your first question. Iowa for one is mandating time off for state employees (union and non-union alike)!!!
My point is a contract is a contract. I don't like this AIG bonus crap anymore than anyone else. If anyone is to blame, it is the lawmakers that came up with that idiotic scheme to get money to the banks without conditions. BTW was that mandatory time off a break in the contract? If so did they file?
Where are the job applications? Just think of the influx of money by me to the trapshooting clubs and SCTP and AIM, just saying.
It is either the time off or layoffs. At least people are working together so more of them have a job.
I'm sure lobbyist have a great deal to do with how the bailouts favored select few. As far as I'm concerned everyone in politics are crooked regardless of party affiliation. They used to give us a little KY before they stuck it to us but now they don't even do that, its just take it all now.
Setterman, I agree that a valid contract should be honored and enforced absent material misrepresentation or a situation where there was no "meeting of the minds". However, the contract was between AIG and their sales/salaried staff who are entitled to bonuses, not a third party, i.e. the U.S. Govt. Accordingly, I believe AIG had no business paying the bonuses with taxpayer dollars and I would hope that a Judge or Jury would have seen it that way if the matter was litigated. However, a good set of conditions, as you suggest, imposed by Congress could have prevented this fiasco. But then again, it was pushed through within about 2 weeks of the media telling us that the sky was falling regarding our economy. It seems like a lot of people knew they couldn't come up with a good plan in that short amount of time, except for Congress.
Of course with the 2008 election just weeks away, the A-hole politicians were scrambling to put a bandaid on a melanoma spot that was about to go metatstic. Screwed again by our Government, John E.
P.S. Likes, they don't use the lubricant your speak of because the politicians figure that we are use to it by now. Unfortunately, we are.
You guys need to try this on, when we bailed the banks out, instead of making loans to help the economy they invested it overseas, because of the better return. I urge everyone to pull any money you have in the big banks and put it in smaller local banks. I wonder how many of these loans went to Greece and some of the other countries about to default on loans. John
Bisi's rant is right-on. Regarding AIG being required by contract to pay bonuses, yes that's just another example of the gross incompetence of government. Why didn't they simply say, "All contract-mandated salaries + bonuses beyond X-dollars total are cancelled until you repay the bailout in full with interest -- do you want the bailout or do you want to collapse?"
I heard some TV talking-head idiot say "these executives are accustomed to making huge bonuses -- if you don't pay them then the top employees will leave." Where are they going to go? How many jobs are there which pay 7-figure bonuses to people who run businesses into the ground? Let them go. There are lots of highly educated, experienced and talented people who will work very hard for a fraction of what those skumbags "are accustomed to making."
But again, it all goes back the the incompetence of the federal government. The founders created the federal government to defend the nation and print money. The more we foolishly allow them to invade our lives beyond those purposes, the closer we will get to the tipping point -- where the country can simply no longer sustain the burden of the massive incompetent government and it's entitlements. I suspect that historians will look back and be astonished that we didn't see it coming and do something to stop it.
You could make an argument that these guys can legally receive their bonuses, but if you ask me they are no way entitled to them. I might be arguing Symantec’s, but it just galls me they have the balls to even ask for a bonus.
Here is the analogy. You hire a guy to be a caretaker of your property. Let's say the property is a gun club. You hire him to watch the place during the winter and tell him you will be back in 6 months. You make an agreement that if the guy stays the whole 6 months he will receive a bonus. While caretaking the guys leaves the trap houses unattended and the trap machines and all the clay targets are stolen. He forgets to turn on the heat in the clubhouse and all the pipes burst and floods the place and ruins all the Red Dot and other components you had that you sold to your customers. Finally one night he gets drunk and decides to build a fire and burns the damn place down.
At the end of 6 months you return and find your place gone, but the caretaker you hired is still there living in his camper. Now let me ask you - is the guy entitled to that bonus you promised? He is still there. He stayed for the entire 6 months, just like you asked.
I'm not sure if that analogy is right though either, because in the real world things would work differently. After finding out that your business had been destroyed and you had no money to rebuild a couple of shooters decided to bail you out and rebuild the business. Would the shooters who are bailing out and paying for rebuilding the clubhouse pay the caretaker his bonus? I don't think so. They would tell the caretaker to pound sand and try and collect from the guy who doesn't have any money because you destroyed his business.
Don't confuse AIG with the banks. AIG is an insurance company (not a bank)and should not have been playing in high risk investments - they got burned and should now be paying. The majority of the big banks have paid back TARP - in fact the goverment is on track to profit to the tune of $19 billion from the big banks. It's the insurance companies, mid/small banks and auto industry that are taking our tax dollars.
John Browning - provide a citation of how much the big banks loaned overseas vs. in the U.S.
One of the big banks that has repaid TARP loaned $758 billion in 09 with the majority of it provided to U.S. consumers - $16 billion for new small business loans, a significant amount dedicated to restructing loans for 60,000+ current small business owners, $87 billion in the 4th Q alone for new first mortgages ($23B of this was to low/moderate income households), and additional billions to restructure 260,000+ mortgage loan modifications, etc.
Don't make up crap.
Mar 15, 2009, in forum: Politics, Elections & Legislation
Mar 17, 2009, in forum: Off Topic Threads
AIG bonuses | Trap Shooters Forum
Discussion in 'Off Topic Threads' started by Bisi, Feb 4, 2010.
Well I see where AIG is going to give out a 100 million in bonuses. Even though they still owes the taxpayers of this country something like $125 BILLION (125,000,000,000). Now isn't that special!!
Now I know these bonuses are in their contract, but it still stinks to high heaven. That is just rubbing the taxpayers nose in it, if you ask me. There wouldn't be a damn AIG, or a job with that company, much less a bonus, if it weren't for the taxpayers bailing their rotten company out.
Giving bonuses to people who needed a bailout?? You need Billions upon billions to save you a** and then you expect a bonus?? Everything is screwed up in this country, there is a portion of the population living in fantasy land anymore. What happened to reality? Lose billions - you still get a bonus. The federal government is running Trillion dollar deficits and yet the average federal government employee makes 50 percent more than the average worker in private industry. Does this make any sense. When will they be asked to sacrifice? Do any of them get laid off.
Congressmen get sent to jail and still collect their pension. On and on it goes.
Meanwhile I can think of a half dozen local small business's open 20 years plus that have closed in the last year. Most walked away with nothing, nobody to bail them or their employees out. Every week the paper is just full of sheriff's sales.
A couple of weeks ago I seen a former neighbor's obit in the paper. He was only 47. I wondered what he died from? Found out a couple of days ago from a relative of his. He shot himself. He was a self employed carpenter who had been out of work for a long while. They said that was probably the reason.
I don't even know why I'm posting this, but it just seems that there are 2 sets of rules in this country anymore. The high and mighty screw up they get bailed out, the others....... Well hell they were nobodies anyway so......
Bisi, I feel your pain. Bush's bailout and Obama's stimulus are total B.S. and completely out of touch with commons sense.
Hey, LUCKYMAN!, it looks like I am not the only one who thinks the bailout and what it was used for was a crock of $^!+.
Bisi, no sass directed toward you, I am just trying to prove a point to Luckyman, because he thought the bailout was okay, compared to Obama's stimulus, because it is being paid back as he stated in one of his posts in bigunn's "Failed President" thread.
We all feel the same about that - however the contracts are legally binding and were not renegotiated as part of the bailout. But yes it is absolutely sickening and the people taking those bonuses should be ashamed of themselves. Like many americans, I had to take several weeks of furlow last year followed by a general pay cut. That was not what my contract with my company specifies but really what are my options? In my case it isn't worth a law suit because I don't get paid that much but when you are talking about several million dollars you get lawyers lining up to 'help' you. I'm just grateful to have a job and the reason my company survived and is recovering is because everybody took those cuts. I don't expect to get a bailout or any other kind of rescue.
Have there been any State employee union wages renegotiated in those states that received Stymulus money? No. Whats the difference? Those brokers for AIG have contracts too. Michigan's budget for instance was temporarily saved by Fed funds. Now they are right back where they were a year ago. No State employee wages have been cut/renegotiated. How many million are they overbudget?? True, our brainiac Congress should have applied conditions to the Bank Bailout Package and the Stymulus, but we now know what their main motive was.
Setterman.....Would mandatory time off with out pay qualify as changing a contract for state workers? After all it effectively reduces an employees per hour wages and required hrs for benefits.
If I were you I'd check all 50 states before saying No to your first question. Iowa for one is mandating time off for state employees (union and non-union alike)!!!
My point is a contract is a contract. I don't like this AIG bonus crap anymore than anyone else. If anyone is to blame, it is the lawmakers that came up with that idiotic scheme to get money to the banks without conditions. BTW was that mandatory time off a break in the contract? If so did they file?
Where are the job applications? Just think of the influx of money by me to the trapshooting clubs and SCTP and AIM, just saying.
It is either the time off or layoffs. At least people are working together so more of them have a job.
I'm sure lobbyist have a great deal to do with how the bailouts favored select few. As far as I'm concerned everyone in politics are crooked regardless of party affiliation. They used to give us a little KY before they stuck it to us but now they don't even do that, its just take it all now.
Setterman, I agree that a valid contract should be honored and enforced absent material misrepresentation or a situation where there was no "meeting of the minds". However, the contract was between AIG and their sales/salaried staff who are entitled to bonuses, not a third party, i.e. the U.S. Govt. Accordingly, I believe AIG had no bus
iness paying the bonuses with taxpayer dollars and I would hope that a Judge or Jury would have seen it that way if the matter was litigated. However, a good set of conditions, as you suggest, imposed by Congress could have prevented this fiasco. But then again, it was pushed through within about 2 weeks of the media telling us that the sky was falling regarding our economy. It seems like a lot of people knew they couldn't come up with a good plan in that short amount of time, except for Congress.
Of course with the 2008 election just weeks away, the A-hole politicians were scrambling to put a bandaid on a melanoma spot that was about to go metatstic. Screwed again by our Government, John E.
P.S. Likes, they don't use the lubricant your speak of because the politicians figure that we are use to it by now. Unfortunately, we are.
You guys need to try this on, when we bailed the banks out, instead of making loans to help the economy they invested it overseas, because of the better return. I urge everyone to pull any money you have in the big banks and put it in smaller local banks. I wonder how many of these loans went to Greece and some of the other countries about to default on loans. John
Bisi's rant is right-on. Regarding AIG being required by contract to pay bonuses, yes that's just another example of the gross incompetence of government. Why didn't they simply say, "All contract-mandated salaries + bonuses beyond X-dollars total are cancelled until you repay the bailout in full with interest -- do you want the bailout or do you want to collapse?"
I heard some TV talking-head idiot say "these executives are accustomed to making huge bonuses -- if you don't pay them then the top employees will leave." Where are they going to go? How many jobs are there which pay 7-figure bonuses to people who run businesses into the ground? Let them go. There are lots of highly educated, experienced and talented people who will work very hard for a fraction of what those skumbags "are accustomed to making."
But again, it all goes back the the incompetence of the federal government. The founders created the federal government to defend the nation and print money. The more we foolishly allow them to invade our lives beyond those purposes, the closer we will get to the tipping point -- where the country can simply no longer sustain the burden of the massive incompetent government and it's entitlements. I suspect that historians will look back and be astonished that we didn't see it coming and do something to stop it.
You could make an argument that these guys can legally receive their bonuses, but if you ask me they are no way entitled to them. I might be arguing Symantec’s, but it just galls me they have the balls to even ask for a bonus.
Here is the analogy. You hire a guy to be a caretaker of your property. Let's say the property is a gun club. You hire him to watch the place during the winter and tell him you will be back in 6 months. You make an agreement that if the guy stays the whole 6 months he will receive a bonus. While caretaking the guys leaves the trap houses unattended and the trap machines and all the clay targets are stolen. He forgets to turn on the heat in the clubhouse and all the pipes burst and floods the place and ruins all the Red Dot and other components you had that you sold to your customers. Finally one night he gets drunk and decides to build a fire and burns the damn place down.
At the end of 6 months you return and find your place gone, but the caretaker you hired is still there living in his camper. Now let me ask you - is the guy entitled to that bonus you promised? He is still there. He stayed for the entire 6 months, just like you asked.
I'm not sure if that analogy is right though either, because in the real world things would work differently. After finding out that your business had been destroyed and you had no money to rebuild a couple of shooters decided to bail you out and rebuild the business. Would the shooters who are bailing out and paying for rebuilding the clubhouse pay the caretaker his bonus? I don't think so. They would tell the caretaker to pound sand and try and collect from the guy who doesn't have any money because you destroyed his business.
Don't confuse AIG with the banks. AIG is an insurance company (not a bank)and should not have been playing in high risk investments - they got burned and should now be paying. The majority of the big banks have paid back TARP - in fact the goverment is on track to profit to the tune of $19 billion from the big banks. It's the insurance companies, mid/small banks and auto industry that are taking our tax dollars.
John Browning - provide a citation of how much the big banks loaned overseas vs. in the U.S.
One of the big banks that has repaid TARP loaned $758 billion in 09 with the majority of it provided to U.S. consumers - $16 billion for new small business loans, a significant amount dedicated to restructing loans for 60,000+ current small business owners, $87 billion in the 4th Q alone for new first mortgages ($23B of this was to low/moderate income households), and additional billions to restructure 260,000+ mortgage loan modifications, etc.
Don't make up crap.
Mar 15, 2009, in forum: Politics, Elections & Legislation
Mar 17, 2009, in forum: Off Topic Threads