Obama to block executive bonuses at AIG

[Der Nister]

The $165 million was payable to executives by Sunday and was part of a larger total payout reportedly valued at $450 million. The company has benefited from more than $170 billion in a federal rescue.

AIG outrage.

I will never understand how a company that accepts federal (tax money) bailout can justify giving their CEO's bonuses (of any sort).

These 'big chief's' essentially failed at keeping the AIG company out of debt yet, they are still getting bonuses.

WTF!?!?!?!?!

In the real world (or should I say - the world for us not so fortunate little people) we get fired for being a few minutes late for work or missing a day. Seems those offenses hardly could bring a corporation to it's knees.

Am I the only one that see's this as being askew? This I think, is what's wrong with America......

...corporate greed!!!!!

[Rev.Reverence]

+

[Oh_My_Goth]

Go Obama

The rich need to see what is happening in this country right now.. They need to do a little suffering too, & give up that vacation to Paris this year.

[Rev.Reverence]

Go Obama

The rich need to see what is happening in this country right now.. They need to do a little suffering too, & give up that vacation to Paris this year.

YEAH! that's the rant I wanted to post! they need to be grounded for bein' so bad!!!

[Der Nister]

Isn't it so nice that the rich get our money so they don't have to give up the lifestyles they enjoy so much.

Heaven forbid they should go without during this finacial crisis that has been gripping our nation since around 2005.

Not that it existed until recently according to some (whom are no longer employed in Washington *cough*bush*cough*)............

How these motherfuckers can justify accepting that money is sooooooooooo beyond me.

Those that indulge in this outrage should be crucified.

(can you tell this angers me?)

[candyman]

Would this be a bad time to mention that I find this downspiral funny? The whole experience of life is filled with trillions of events and this is the one where you shit your pants? Sorry, I am still alive and so are my friends...just try to make me sad...

On topic: Umm...what did people expect from those that make tons of money? I for one was hoping that they would drive around in their Vipers throwing money or candy out the windows to us poor people rolling in the mud. Honestly, this is all going as it should...if you kick a bear in the testicles it will maul you, and if you put a rich person in a failing economy they will try to grap every penny that they can...

[Slogo]

I must say it's bs if the auto unions have to make concessions yet some white, pussy, business-man (to paraphrase Carlin) still gets to keep his 4th yacht

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

As much as it pleases me that they are not getting thier bonuses if Obama get's his way... the reason they were still getting them was Contracts. You know, those legally binding things that are very hard to get out of.

This can set a very bad precedence. I am not sure I realyl want the Federal government deciding when someone earns "to much".

[Slogo]

As much as it pleases me that they are not getting thier bonuses if Obama get's his way... the reason they were still getting them was Contracts. You know, those legally binding things that are very hard to get out of.

This can set a very bad precedence. I am not sure I realyl want the Federal government deciding when someone earns "to much".

Kinda like the unions, huh?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I dont support the unions.. and I am have been a member of the United Oil and Chemical workers and United Auto Workers unions in my life. The unions are over paid and have too much power. I don't see anyone bitching about the unions heads taking thier millions of dollars in bonuses or having thier anual meetings at 5 star resorts.

[Scary Guy]

I dont support the unions.. and I am have been a member of the United Oil and Chemical workers and United Auto Workers unions in my life. The unions are over paid and have too much power. I don't see anyone bitching about the unions heads taking thier millions of dollars in bonuses or having thier anual meetings at 5 star resorts.

To me union is just another word for cartel.

[Slogo]

You can't have it both ways

[Slogo]

But how is it fair if the senate can tell the unions they get paid too much but if it's a Executive it's a "slippery slope"

[pomba gira]

Go Obama

The rich need to see what is happening in this country right now.. They need to do a little suffering too, & give up that vacation to Paris this year.

I agree. They should all have to go and board with some of the families who've been affected by their actions. I think part of the problem is they really have no fucking idea what it's like for us who live from paycheck to paycheck and are "3 paychecks away from homelessness". Not to mention those who currently are not GETTING paychecks. OUT OF MY CLASS OF 18 STUDENTS, FIVE HAVE SPENT PART OF THIS SCHOOL YEAR LIVING IN SHELTERS!!! And their families are crashing with relatives the rest of the time. This is not right!

[candyman]

But how is it fair if the senate can tell the unions they get paid too much but if it's a Executive it's a "slippery slope"

Shit just ain't fair...

Since man first came out of the cave it has been this way. The big boys can go on vacation and spend tons of money on projects that fail and the worst he gets is a mild scolding, but the worker no matter how powerful he is and how many perks he has earned can be just a little late for work or can miss one day and he will get his ass fired.

My life is set up for defeat, and no I do not find this bad or depressing in any way. I have been fired many times for petty reasons even when I was managing a large group of loaders because I was the only smart one. I have enough dirt on many of these places to write a volume of books, but how do I use it? I would have to hire the best lawyers in the world and would probably have to make some very powerful friends, which I will not do because I don't work that way. The way those companies were run was just as corrupt as I thought they would be, and with a little searching I found stuff that was even worse. However, the fact remains that there will ALWAYS be someone bigger than you that is protected by something, and it is not worth the trouble to take them down. I do take pride in the fact that I have hurt these companies in other ways...

Unions ARE out of hand, I will never be part of one again because I like to EARN my shit, not just get it handed to me. CEO's are also out of hand. Unions can be and should be regulated. Also, the rich CEO brats can be taken down...it just takes more thinking that "lets pass laws against them"...it seems stupid to say this be think outside the box...

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

But how is it fair if the senate can tell the unions they get paid too much but if it's a Executive it's a "slippery slope"

The sentate didn't.

[Scary Guy]

The sentate didn't.

Semantics... By senate he meant anyone in the government, just replace it with anyone in the government.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

but no one said that HAD to do it... there was nothig passed that forced it. No legal action, no bills... no presidential orders. It was suggested. The Corps ran with it, the Unions caved.

I'm glad the Unions caved. I blame unions for the high cost of living.

[Slogo]

Shit just ain't fair...

Since man first came out of the cave it has been this way. The big boys can go on vacation and spend tons of money on projects that fail and the worst he gets is a mild scolding, but the worker no matter how powerful he is and how many perks he has earned can be just a little late for work or can miss one day and he will get his ass fired.

My life is set up for defeat, and no I do not find this bad or depressing in any way. I have been fired many times for petty reasons even when I was managing a large group of loaders because I was the only smart one. I have enough dirt on many of these places to write a volume of books, but how do I use it? I would have to hire the best lawyers in the world and would probably have to make some very powerful friends, which I will not do because I don't work that way. The way those companies were run was just as corrupt as I thought they would be, and with a little searching I found stuff that was even worse. However, the fact remains that there will ALWAYS be someone bigger than you that is protected by something, and it is not worth the trouble to take them down. I do take pride in the fact that I have hurt these companies in other ways...

Unions ARE out of hand, I will never be part of one again because I like to EARN my shit, not just get it handed to me. CEO's are also out of hand. Unions can be and should be regulated. Also, the rich CEO brats can be taken down...it just takes more thinking that "lets pass laws against them"...it seems stupid to say this be think outside the box...

As long as you're consistent

[asphyxian_doll]

I dont support the unions.. and I am have been a member of the United Oil and Chemical workers and United Auto Workers unions in my life. The unions are over paid and have too much power. I don't see anyone bitching about the unions heads taking thier millions of dollars in bonuses or having thier anual meetings at 5 star resorts.

I don't see the point in bitching at all to be honest.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

It starts small, but it really makes a difference.

Corporate greed,

corrupt governments,

war,

poverty,

death.....

It won't end.

Its part of this dimension.....

All you can do is be the change within yourself,

and find a higher purpose than ranting about things that will most likely always be apart of this world.

If you really do not want this world to repeat its history so much, stop repeating your own.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

If no one ever points out what they see as wrong with the world, nothing will ever change. Real change starts with the people, not some empty suit in high office. So, I will continue to bitch. I will scream loudly in the town square about what I see wrong with the world.

but today, I am going to a planning meeting for the Tax Day Tea party.

[Rev.Reverence]

I dont support the unions.. and I am have been a member of the United Oil and Chemical workers and United Auto Workers unions in my life. The unions are over paid and have too much power. I don't see anyone bitching about the unions heads taking thier millions of dollars in bonuses or having thier anual meetings at 5 star resorts.

..I'll get to it I think the strife in the country is because of such things. (on BOTH sides, CORPS & UNIONS)

The Union heads are just pretending to be CEOs.

CEOs get bonuses due to contracts? that's not how I understand the word "BONUS"....you know what I mean?

They get 6 figures a year...what do they NEED a bonus for fucking up...unless it was their job to fuck up.

(edited for balance)

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

And now a closer look...

Anger Over Firm Depletes Obama's Political Capital

By Michael D. Shear and Paul Kane

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, March 17, 2009; A01

President Obama's apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.

Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to executives at the company, demanding answers from the president and swamping yesterday's rollout of his efforts to spark lending to small businesses.

The populist anger at the executives who ran their firms into the ground is increasingly blowing back on Obama, whom aides yesterday described as having little recourse in the face of legal contracts that guaranteed those bonuses.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, peppered with questions about why the president had not done more to block the bonuses at a company that has received $170 billion in taxpayer funds, struggled for an answer yesterday afternoon. He explained that government lawyers are "looking through contracts to see what can be done to wrest these bonuses from their recipients."

Obama himself sought to channel the public's sense of disbelief yesterday. "How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?" he said, declaring the bonuses an "outrage" that violate "fundamental values."

White House aides grasped for actions that could soothe sentiment on Main Street and in the halls of Congress, where the fate of the new president's sweeping agendas on health care, climate change and education will be decided. They suggested that the government will use its latest pledged installment of $30 billion for the ailing company to recover the millions in bonuses paid Friday.

But the damage control did not seem to satisfy incredulous lawmakers in both parties, who said the image of financial executives taking huge bonuses from a taxpayer-funded rescue puts the president in a politically impossible position.

"I warned them this would be met with an unprecedented level of outrage," Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the chairman of the banking committee and part of a group of senators who pressed Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to stop the bonuses, said yesterday.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said the bonus issue added to his belief that there will be almost no Republican support for any expansion of a bank-bailout program that passed Congress last fall with broad bipartisan support.

"What is the government's exit strategy from this sweeping involvement in private business?" he asked in a statement, adding that "taxpayers are not receiving an adequate accounting from either the Treasury or the management of the companies that received taxpayer funds. Unfortunately, we have not yet seen such a plan."

The rhetoric grew so heated yesterday that Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) suggested in a radio interview that AIG executives ought to "follow the Japanese model . . . resign, or go commit suicide." An aide later explained he does not actually want executives to kill themselves.

More than 80 House Democrats signed a letter demanding that the money used to pay the bonuses be recouped from AIG. New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced that he will subpoena the Manhattan-based company, seeking data documenting who received the bonuses and the justification for them.

"You could argue that if taxpayers hadn't bailed out AIG, the contracts wouldn't be worth the paper they were signed on," Cuomo said.

The Obama administration was already facing a skeptical public and members of Congress critical of the huge sums of money the government has allocated to shoring up the devastated financial system.

News of the latest AIG bonuses only compounded the political problems that the huge expenditures pose for the president. The administration has tried to manage the public anger by expressing empathy with the outrage over the large outlays to financial firms, while explaining that they are necessary to stabilize the economy.

Earlier this month, the administration added to the bailout money needed to keep AIG functioning, saying failure of the company would be disastrous for the larger economy. And the administration is all but certain to return to Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars more to aid the financial system.

But the bonus issue, in particular, is hounding Obama as he pursues his larger goals, in part because of the president's own repeated declarations of outrage -- offered again yesterday -- aimed especially at the firms that are feeding at the public trough.

In February, Obama announced tough new restrictions on executive compensation that promised an end to massive salaries for executives of failing companies. Similar rules were eventually written into legislation and hailed as evidence that executive compensation would be checked.

But reports about the latest AIG bonuses quickly undermined whatever political capital Obama has earned with his past efforts.

Over the weekend, White House officials expressed outrage at the bonuses paid out by AIG but said there was nothing they could do to stop them. After news of the bonuses dominated news coverage for two days, the administration took a newly aggressive stance.

Asked why the administration is attempting to claw back the bonuses now but did not do more to block the payments earlier this month when it was authorizing the latest $30 billion in new loans to the struggling insurer, Gibbs was unresponsive.

"The administration is taking the steps today to go back and see what can be done," he said.

[Destroit]

I blame unions for the high cost of living.

*siiigh* And yet so many people aren't like us, Gaf, and don't see that. Not only that they support unions, unions are bad, they cause the salaries of the workers in factories to go up and up and up for doing the SAME fucking job. Nobody should be working for a car company making $80,000 a year for fuck's sakes, you're pressing a fucking button and it doesn't take any thought. They need to earn what they make, and the last time I checked that should be somewhere between $8.50 - $12 at the most for factory work, or at least that's how it should be.

Hence the reason I refuse to buy American, shitty product for more money...I mean common sense consumerism would state to go for the better product that is cheaper and has customer service that cares for you.

I want to watch the Big Three go down and stand on the sidelines cackling, as evil as that sounds, and alllll those people will be unemployed. Serves them right for being in the union and trying to up the ante constantly, greed SHOULD make one homeless imo...

[taysteewonderbunny]

My mom tells me that all her pension money, both hers as a teacher and the bit she gets from my dad, was financed through AIG. If they fail, my family is in the poorhouse--except that there aren't poorhouses anymore, so they'd be on the dole...except that there isn't any dole for pensioners outside of the measly SS payments. Yep. Bonuses my ass. The CEO's should be forced to live at the hospitality of all the people's lives they took for granted and meet everyone whose welfare they put at risk. That's the only kind of tribute they should get.