Mar 15, 2009

http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/aig-bonuses/382938

Do you get the feeling that the taxpayers are being forced to give bonuses to millionaires?

I thought it was the Republican party that was the party of the rich. Democrats say they want to get rid of tax cuts for the rich, so they make up for it by giving them bonuses?

I guess it doesn't matter much which party is in power insofar as the wealthy are concerned. They know they own both parties through campaign contributions.

AIG will need more bailout money in a few months, or whenever more of their derivatives come due. It will be politically difficult to give them more, though I have no doubt they will get it anyway. I wonder how the polls will reflect Obama's popularity after this.

Supposedly they entered into these bonus contracts a year ago and can't get out of them. If so, these bonuses obviously were not based upon the performance of the company or how well these executives made money for the company. Their greed is making a pretty good argument that AIG should have been allowed to go into bankruptcy, so that these "bonus contracts" could have been voided. But I guess they do that sort of thing to the lower-paid workers.

Seems to me that if they take those bonuses, it should at least be considered "severance pay" so they can get hired by the government to bring their expertise to the Treasury department or the Fed. That way we can declare bankruptcy and start over much quicker.