Green Energy
Washington Post:
Rage at AIG Swells As Bonuses Go Out
Fed Decided Payouts Couldn't Be Stopped
By Brady Dennis and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 17, 2009;
A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.
It's a mob effect," one senior executive said. "It's putting people's lives in danger."
Politicians and the public spent yesterday demanding that AIG rescind payouts that they said rewarded recklessness and greed at a company being bailed out with $170 billion in taxpayer funds. But company officials contend that the uproar is scaring away the very employees who understand AIG Financial Products' complex trades and who are trying to dismantle the division before it further endangers the world's economy.
"It's going to blow up," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I have a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling that this is going to end badly."
President Obama yesterday vowed to "pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses." But that pledge might have come too late. About $165 million in retention payments started to go out Friday to employees at Financial Products, after numerous discussions with the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.
Attorneys working for the Fed had been examining the matter for months and determined that the retention payments couldn't be touched because AIG would face costly lawsuits and be subject to penalties from states and foreign governments. Administration officials said over the weekend that they agreed with that assessment.
the rest here
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Green Energy
Mob Anger Over AIG
Washington Post:
Rage at AIG Swells As Bonuses Go Out
Fed Decided Payouts Couldn't Be Stopped
By Brady Dennis and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 17, 2009;
A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.
It's a mob effect," one senior executive said. "It's putting people's lives in danger."
Politicians and the public spent yesterday demanding that AIG rescind payouts that they said rewarded recklessness and greed at a company being bailed out with $170 billion in taxpayer funds. But company officials contend that the uproar is scaring away the very employees who understand AIG Financial Products' complex trades and who are trying to dismantle the division before it further endangers the world's economy.
"It's going to blow up," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I have a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling that this is going to end badly."
President Obama yesterday vowed to "pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses." But that pledge might have come too late. About $165 million in retention payments started to go out Friday to employees at Financial Products, after numerous discussions with the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.
Attorneys working for the Fed had been examining the matter for months and determined that the retention payments couldn't be touched because AIG would face costly lawsuits and be subject to penalties from states and foreign governments. Administration officials said over the weekend that they agreed with that assessment.
the rest here
- Continuing Our Long Descent Into Socialist Madness
How does this give anyone incentive to work harder, be better, improve their company? It starts with the execs now, but when will it start to filter down? MSNBC: Automakers, banks slapped with pay limits Pay czar curbs execs' cash pay to $500,000...
- Chrysler Financial Refused Government Loan Over Limits On Executive Pay
Guess that didn't work out quite as you'd planned, eh Mr. President? Washington Post: Sources: Chrysler Financial Refused Government Loan Over Limits on Executive Pay By David Cho and Peter Whoriskey Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, April...
- "we Pay You Congressman. Act Like It." (video)
From Gateway Pundit: "The Constitution never gave you the damn authority of telling anyone what they should make... The Constitution never gave you the authority to blythely come in here and arrogantly set pay for people you don't even know. And,...
- And This Is Your Excuse...we Really Didn't Know? Aig Tale Grows Ever More Iconic Of Obama
ABC NEWS: Obama Administration: We Didn't Find Out About AIG Bonuses Until This Month March 17, 2009 7:18 PM Sources in the Obama administration Tuesday said that despite previous media reports administration officials did...
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From Jeffrey Imm: For the third month in a row, AIG is in the news regarding its promotion of Sharia-compliant finance (SCF) products, which promote the Islamic supremacist, segregationist ideology of Sharia. For a company struggling with its financial...