the world is truly insane

[Ken Gargett]

just got this on email alert. if obama is even vaguely serious, he steps in and revokes the entire bailout unless these idiots are sacked, not rewarded. would send the best possible sign to everyone. he allows this and he is not serious about fixing the problems.

Breaking News Alert

The New York Times

Saturday, March 14, 2009 -- 8:23 PM ET

-----

A.I.G. to Pay $100 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout

Despite being bailed out with more than $170 billion from the

Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International

Group is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to

executives in the same business unit that brought the company

to the brink of collapse last year.

[Colt45]

KG, he's a politician.

[Ken Gargett]

KG, he's a politician.

and i reckon he'd get a bucket load of votes for doing it.

[jwm8592]

alas,

its business as usual in Washington. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours!

[zuma]

Breaking News Alert

The New York Times

Saturday, March 14, 2009 -- 8:23 PM ET---

A.I.G. to Pay $100 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout

Despite being bailed out with more than $170 billion from the

Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International

Group is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to

executives in the same business unit that brought the company

to the brink of collapse last year.

It won't happen, the U.S. Treasury is stepping in...

Treasury Demands AIG Cut Bonuses as $165 Million Payment Looms

[Ken Gargett]

It won't happen, the U.S. Treasury is stepping in...

Treasury Demands AIG Cut Bonuses as $165 Million Payment Looms

my reading of that is a little different.

they are reducing some payments but on march 15 - today!! - are sharing out $165m. contractual obligations. and they want to keep talented people. so they are paying squillions to keep the ''talented'' people who put them in this complete crap in the first place. they lost more than $60 billion in one single quarter. talent like that really is hard to find. and mr liddy (is he related to gordon?) finds it distasteful. most of us find it absolutely criminally disgraceful. rather than pretending to hide behind alleged contractual obligations to keep these grubs and their snouts in the trough, bring some negligence actions against them for millions. and watch how quickly you could 'renegotiate' these contracts. mr liddy is as big a liar and scumbag as the rest of them.

did this bloke really say any of this with a straight face?

the govt must step in and yank the bailout until this is sorted. the sooner obama realises that this is not going to be a soft landing the better. the longer he goes on trying to save some of these disastrs, the worse it will be, even if it does hurt in the short term.

Treasury Demands AIG Cut Bonuses as $165 Million Payment Looms

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By Hugh Son and Robert Schmidt

March 15 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc., the insurer saved from collapse by a $170 billion taxpayer bailout, was ordered by the U.S. Treasury to scale back its $1 billion plan to give retention pay and bonuses.

AIG agreed to reduce some retention payments in 2009 by 30 percent and tie bonuses to the company’s recovery, according to a person briefed on the matter and a letter from AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy. The New York-based insurer still plans to distribute about $165 million on March 15 because of legally binding contracts, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks weren’t public.

“I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them,” Liddy wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a March 14 letter, which said the contracts predated his arrival. “With the benefit of hindsight, I would have designed these differently and at significantly lower levels.”

AIG, whose fourth-quarter loss was the worst in corporate history, earmarked $1 billion in retention pay for about 4,600 of the company’s 116,000 employees so they won’t leave the crippled insurer. Liddy has vowed AIG will repay “every penny” to the U.S. for its bailout package by selling subsidiaries, and said the retention pay for talented people helps taxpayers by making the units attractive to buyers.

Geithner telephoned Liddy on March 11 to demand changes to AIG’s plan, an administration official said separately. The Treasury didn’t try to halt the March 15 payments after determining that AIG was legally bound to make them.

Financial Products

The discussions with Geithner focused on the insurer’s financial products unit, the credit-default swaps subsidiary whose losses pushed AIG to the brink of bankruptcy in September. AIG planned to give about $450 million in retention pay to about 400 employees of the unit, Bloomberg News reported in January.

Retention payments for employees in the unit will be cut by at least 30 percent for 2009, Liddy wrote. The top award in the unit was about $6.5 million, and six other employees got more than $3 million, Liddy wrote.

About $165 million tied to 2008 must be paid by March 15, on top of $55 million distributed in December, according to an AIG summary. Another $230 million for 2009 retention may be reduced as parts of the unit are sold and employees are laid off.

The Treasury may try to recoup some of the payments to financial products unit employees, according to the person familiar with the talks.

AIG also agreed to restructure a separate annual cash bonus plan that covers some of the senior corporate executives. The so-called senior partners of AIG, who include some of the top 50 managers, were scheduled to get $9.6 million in cash now.

Installment Plan

Under a new arrangement they will get half of the awards now, and the rest in installments in July and September if they show progress in the firm’s turnaround plan, according to the person briefed on the matter. The total average payment per person is $224,000, the person said.

Liddy said the 25 highest-paid “active contract employees” in financial products agreed to reduce their remaining 2009 salary to $1, from an average of more than $270,000. Anyone with a title of associate vice president or higher will have the rest of his or her 2009 salary cut 10 percent, he wrote.

Liddy’s letter didn’t mention any cuts in retention payments at other business units. In addition to the financial products unit, AIG planned to award $148 million to top executives, and about $470 million for three other subsidiaries, according to a person familiar with the plans and company documents. An AIG filing on March 2 confirmed a Bloomberg report that all its employee retention plans might cost $1 billion.

Impact on Recovery

Liddy told Geithner that the changes may make it harder for him to engineer a recovery at AIG, once the world’s biggest insurer, saying that he can’t retain top talent “if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury.”

Liddy, who was recruited by the U.S. to run AIG after the bailout, isn’t among those entitled to a payment.

The company’s fourth-quarter loss of $61.7 billion was the biggest ever recorded for any U.S. company, and AIG considered seeking court protection before accepting the U.S. rescue in September.

The retention payments have drawn criticism from U.S. lawmakers who objected to giving millions of dollars to employees who may have helped deepen the global credit crisis.

Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, has said AIG showed a “pattern of deception” in its disclosures, and Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, asked during a December hearing whether AIG’s retention payments are appropriate for executives who “are part of the team that ran the company into the ground.”

[OZCUBAN]

Lets just hope that this does not happen.

I was brought up to be accountable for my own actions, its a shame the rest of the world does not subscribe to this way of thinking.

GREED IS NOT GOOD

[sounddust]

Even as wankers like Madoff are rotting in jail, the politicians who have enabled them over the years are emerging spotless, some even heralded as heroes from this mess.

[Jimmy2]

Its a ******* joke these Scumbags should rott !!!! I lost over $80,000 of my retirement money i hope i will regain it in years to come.But they should not get nothing as i have lost alot so they should have the same fortune as the rest of us during these tuff times...

[anacostiakat]

Oh it appears they are going to get away with it.

This is pathetic!

[Jesuscookies]

At least someone will be enjoying the yacht that was bought with my money...

[El Presidente]

I must say that this is insane.

AIG was bankrupt bar the bailout money (monies).

So...$170 Billion effectively given no strings attached? What a bunch of windbags.

Colt is right.

[Freefallguy]

rather than pretending to hide behind alleged contractual obligations to keep these grubs and their snouts in the trough, bring some negligence actions against them for millions. and watch how quickly you could 'renegotiate' these contracts.

did this bloke really say any of this with a straight face?

Ken- I’m as outraged and appalled as any other that this should happen. Having said that, you more than many here should know that it would set a dangerous precedent if Big Government were able to manipulate and overturn private contracts. As a businessman I think that a very slippery slope that is best avoided.

Yes, shame on AIG for allowing the top echelon responsible for their demise to remain, but shame on the government regulators who didn’t pick this up before the money was squandered.

So much for change.

[rudder]

Why is everyone so upset with AIG? The Government gave them bailout money with no "rules" on how to spend it. Shame on the Government.