Quote :

"Avoid lighting cigars with one hundred dollar bills in public. "

3/24/2009 2:06:20 PM

is that real?

if so, hahahhaha

3/24/2009 2:08:54 PM

Quote :

"Avoid being reprehensible pieces of shit who deserve the harrassment they receive."

3/24/2009 2:09:04 PM

ha I interviewed with them out of school

woulda been cool for a year or so

3/24/2009 2:10:32 PM

I swear to god I have never heard of AIG before this stimulus shit. They must be some incognito muthafuckers.

3/24/2009 2:11:01 PM

Quote :

"Avoid being reprehensible pieces of shit who deserve the harrassment they receive"

not everybody there is responsible for the meltdown. the far majority of employees surely had absolutely nothing to do with it.

3/24/2009 2:11:43 PM

Quote :

"Avoid pissing off everyone in the country all at once."

3/24/2009 2:12:04 PM

Quote :

"Avoid being reprehensible pieces of shit who deserve the harrassment they receive."

you have trouble understanding how the real world works, don't you?

also, it's harassment...not only should you know how to spell, but the spell-checking built in to any browser that isn't crap should give you a heads up

3/24/2009 2:17:51 PM

my web browser is set to dutch so i have to eyeball it

3/24/2009 2:33:08 PM

Quote :

"Avoid being reprehensible pieces of shit who deserve the harrassment they receive.""

hey fuck you man

sure there may be a handfull that are responsible, but it's the vast minority.

so many poeple are being branded as part devil here when they could be a low level pencil pusher.

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

it's the new racism

3/24/2009 2:38:36 PM

clearly i'm being super cereal and think every last AIG employee should burn

3/24/2009 2:40:56 PM

who cares when people misspell hard words

yeah if you fuck up something easy than shame on you

but if you botch nessescary, restraunt, or rediculous

than shame on whoever corrects you

3/24/2009 2:41:02 PM

look

practically everything i type in english on here is red-squigglied, i'm bound to make some errors

3/24/2009 2:46:48 PM

Quote :

"my web browser is set to dutch so i have to eyeball it"

i'm not sure whether you're serious or not, but it make me LOL anyway

3/24/2009 2:52:59 PM

I had my car insurance through AIG last year. I moved to Progressive after they refused to lower my premium.

I think it's funny they are being told to put away items with the AIG insignia on it. ISNT THAT A FUCKING SIGN YOU SHOULD CLOSE YOUR DOORS?

Oh but hey, at least we got $30 million OUT OF 165 million in bonus money.

3/24/2009 2:56:58 PM

AIG was given bailout money that contained no stipulations for use...just like every other company that received bailout money...

these people were given bonus contracts LONG before the bailout ever happened and the money was ever issued...

the time line for paying these bonuses was known before the Obama stimulus was passed and these bonuses and limits on these bonuses remained exempt...only when they started coming due did the issue arise...and populist mob hatred overtook America...

the vast majority of those people got paid what their contracts said they were to get paid for the work they accomplished...what incentive is there for these people to continue to "produce" when the government is going to pass a law to tax them 90%, post facto, just so they'll be popular with the same people that were pissed off when they lost their bonus this year...

the government should not be able to touch that money since it's basically a commissioned contract...in any other business setting that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen...

3/24/2009 2:58:35 PM

Quote :

"i'm not sure whether you're serious or not, but it make me LOL anyway "

lol i'm not kidding, it's really inconvenient at times

3/24/2009 2:59:33 PM

Quote :

"avoid wearing any AIG apparel"

I wonder if this applies to Manchester United

3/24/2009 3:00:07 PM

Quote :

"these people were given bonus contracts LONG before the bailout ever happened"

clause that increased their bonuses / shielded the from losses from default credit swaps was just written in last september. That wasn't LONG before anything.

Quote :

"in any other business setting that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen..."

Sure, the word FRAUD comes to mind... I could see all sorts of lawsuits

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:02 PM. Reason : . ]

3/24/2009 3:00:44 PM

Quote :

"The provision by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” "

the Dodd Amendment in the Obama plan states

"Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation: Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009."


yet AIG reported their retention bonus amounts over a year ago...

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:09 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/24/2009 3:07:46 PM

Just because they set up multiple "firewalls" to try to make sure they kept their fraud money doesn't mean it isn't fraud money

3/24/2009 3:11:34 PM

Why do failed companies get bonuses when they are failing anyways?

3/24/2009 3:12:47 PM

Because we all got together an gave them a big pile of money.

3/24/2009 3:14:04 PM

the people who got the bonuses may or may not have been people responsible for the decisions that brought AIG down. i heard not, but who knows. if they are doing a good job (ie not the poor decision makers) then i say give them their bonuses

for example, say i work for a company of hardware stores with 10 locations. My store MAKES $80k. 8 other locations lose $10k each. And one location loses $1M. The company as a whole lost $1M but I still did a great job. Should I not get a bonus? No. You fire the guy who lost $1M and then promote me so I can teach the 9 others how to make money

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:22 PM. Reason : example]

3/24/2009 3:16:13 PM

^^^^hey Chris Dodd is one of your guys...

don't blame the AIG employees for that


^absolutely...if the EMPLOYEES did their part then they should be compensated accordingly...

whether or not the COMPANY should have gotten the money while it's in the shitter is not up for discussion here

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:20 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/24/2009 3:18:25 PM

Supposedly 15 of the top 20 bonus receivers have returned the money.

3/24/2009 3:19:20 PM

well when it's taxed 90% they don't have much choice

3/24/2009 3:20:46 PM

Chris Dodd, isn't one of "my guys" - and I'll blame everyone who is actually to blame for this, including everyone who was responsible for writing the fraudulent bonuses into the contracts last year (when they knew exactly what the credit default swaps were going to do to the company)

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:22 PM. Reason : ]

3/24/2009 3:22:01 PM

Quote :

"writing the fraudulent bonuses into the contracts last year"

how do you know they were fraudulent. nobody knows who received the bonuses (and for legitimate reasons) so there's no way to say whether or not these people were doing a good job

3/24/2009 3:24:22 PM

how the hell are retention bonuses fraudulent...

you get rewarded for work accomplished as an incentive to stay with the company....where is the fraud in that...


the base salary of most of these people is nothing probably astronomical

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:26 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/24/2009 3:26:01 PM

Quote :

"how do you know they were fraudulent."

Because of the language they used and when the new language was introduced into the contracts. This was a topic being discussed in the grilling of Bernanke and Geithner this morning.

3/24/2009 3:28:23 PM

but AIG was given the stimulus money free and clear...to do with as they pleased....with no restrictions...just like every other company that received money...

Hank Paulsen should be thrown in jail for the massive abuse of power he enacted over the money...there should have been restrictions and rules put in place for that money before it was ever given to the companies...

if the company decided to cover it's employees' asses as a precaution before the money was doled out then tough shit...i'm not saying it's in good taste for some of the massive amounts of these bonuses to be accepted...but, still, they should be honored...

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:35 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/24/2009 3:35:28 PM

Funny thing is, if we DIDN'T bail these guys out and the company failed, those contracts for executive bonuses would have been null and void, and this entire fiasco would have been a moot point.

But since we had to push a stimulus bill through in less than TWO WEEKS and just throw money at the problem, the CEO is contractually obligated to pay these people. Having the government step in to break legally binding contracts and tell this company how to do it's business sounds an awful lot like socialism.

Boo Stimulus package.

Boo executive bonuses.

3/24/2009 3:38:06 PM

^ money is fungible right? They received more than 1 bailout, and who knows where the money came from. Also, the bonuses would have been null and void if is wasn't for their last-minute manipulation of the contracts... this is what people are having a problem with.

3/24/2009 3:44:34 PM

man if i were an AIG employee i wouldnt escort visitors


they would then know that I work there and I would become a target


btw im sure that those are the normal security guidelines that no one ever follows until they are reposted during times of crisis

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 3:50 PM. Reason : e]

3/24/2009 3:48:01 PM

^^ never heard about any "last minute manipulation."


Got a linK?

3/24/2009 3:52:03 PM

From what I remember from the hearings this morning, it happened in September of last year, once it was apparent that the failure of the swaps was going evaporate their bonuses.

I'm sure there are links...

3/24/2009 3:54:02 PM

now we know what happens when we throw money at crooks

3/24/2009 3:54:33 PM

If a company is going to reward stupidity, that's fine. Let economic natural selection take place.

What pisses me off is when we condone these bad business practices by bailing these companies out. That goes directly counter to a capitalist system. It's not as though banks and financial lenders are going to disappear if we do nothing. Where they fail, another stronger bank will succeed.

At this point I'd say congress is at fault for being the dumbasses and keeping AIG from flopping. So they gave them billions of dollars. That doesn't give them a legal right to dictate how that money is spent, whether it's pissed away on bonuses or not.

3/24/2009 4:05:17 PM

after a few minutes of googling/reading, i can't find any mention of last minute manipulations. the only thing i saw was "early 2008" from a march 14 NYT article

also, i did see that at least one article claimed at least some of the bonuses went to individuals in the same business unit where the losses occurred. so yeah that sucks ass

and "Much of A.I.G., an assortment of businesses that run the gamut from aircraft leasing to life insurance for Indians to retirement plans for elementary-school teachers, remained profitable. But that could not offset losses, primarily from one London based unit, that reached $25 billion for the third quarter of 2008. Given A.I.G.’s size and the complexity of its deals, federal officials decided that a bailout was preferable to the havoc in international markets that would likely follow bankruptcy"

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 4:14 PM. Reason : .]

3/24/2009 4:08:34 PM

yeah....that's all i've ever been able to find myself

3/24/2009 4:09:20 PM

Quote :

"What pisses me off is when we condone these bad business practices by bailing these companies out. That goes directly counter to a capitalist system. It's not as though banks and financial lenders are going to disappear if we do nothing. Where they fail, another stronger bank will succeed. At this point I'd say congress is at fault for being the dumbasses and keeping AIG from flopping. So they gave them billions of dollars. That doesn't give them a legal right to dictate how that money is spent, whether it's pissed away on bonuses or not."

I understand where you're coming from, but the lack of regulation, and the fact that all the banks SHARED so much of the debt, means there was a real chance of our whole financial system crapping out. ESPECIALLY in cases with these "insurance" companies like AIG. When I worked at Wachovia, 90% of my job was sending interest payments back and forth between banks because huge loans get syndicated and the risk spreads from bank to bank. Thanks GOD I got out of that shitty business 2 years ago.. our whole department disappeared a few months ago.

Anyway, with AIG, that was pretty much their whole business, except from what I understand, they were trading and insuring horrible assets... which is why they fell so hard.

^,^^ That isn't what I heard in the hearing this morning, but whatever...

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 4:12 PM. Reason : ]

3/24/2009 4:11:00 PM

As far as the stimulus bill goes it was 1,100 pages and needed to be read in 13 hours. Pretty sure they missed a detail here or there. Also, the Treasure Secretary didn't know about the bonuses until a week before they got the bailout and Obama didn't know until it happened.

According to what I've read and seen on CNN.

This credit problem didn't happen overnight, companies knew what was going to happen as is evident by the few that tried to say something LONG ago, to put bonuses into a contract during a time when the shit is about to hit the fan is greedy, fraudulent, and criminal at best but I guess if you know the company is going down better get the big bucks before you check out, right?

3/24/2009 4:11:42 PM

kiwi i wanna see some titties

3/24/2009 4:13:44 PM

they knew about it since early '08...

besides...the bailout money was NOT regulated in any way or for any use... that goes for any company that received it...

therefore it doesn't matter who the hell knew about the bonuses....if they were going to be given free money to save their failing company then the government can't decide after the fact how they should use it...

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 4:15 PM. Reason : sadfd]

3/24/2009 4:15:16 PM

Quote :

"if they were going to be given free money to save their failing company then the government can't decide after the fact how they should use it..."

oh come on! The government "owns" most of AIG now right? Why the fork shouldn't they be able to tell them what to do? They just need to work it out legally because of the crooks who put those clauses around the bonuses in the contracts that guaranteed them money no matter how bad of a product (yes, they knew how bad their product was) was doing in the market.

3/24/2009 4:19:27 PM

dated today
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/23/news/economy/bonus_tax_onsecondthought/index.htm?postversion=2009032409

Quote :

"Recently it paid out $165 million in retention bonuses to employees in the company's financial products division. Those bonuses were written into employee contracts written in early 2008."

3/24/2009 4:24:44 PM

I'm not emphasizing the bonuses, but the new clause that shielded the bonuses from losses from the credit default swaps (which, I BELIEVE, were written in later... i was working and listening at the same time... but I think I got that part right)

3/24/2009 4:27:16 PM

i don't doubt it, i am just curious to see it reported somewhere else too

3/24/2009 4:33:17 PM

I remember one of the congressmen asking Geithner about it, Geithner couldn't answer because he was with the NY Fed at the time. Bernanke answered I believe, and it was something to the tune of "there were LOTS of contracts... LOTS of banks"

I feel sorry for those guys (Geithner and Bernanke)

3/24/2009 4:35:41 PM