Honestly, I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't reading DU instead of CC. There were NO strings attached to the bailout funds. Congress wrote the bailout that way. Congress gets plenty of taxpayer funded perks (see Queen Pelosi's jet fetish) and I don't see any collective outrage over them getting extras. The Obamessiah has lavish parties every Wednesday. He's done more than AIG to create generational debt beyond what we thought was possible. So far, I haven't seen any collective outrage over his excesses. If he's going to burden our grandchildren with debt on dollars they haven't even earned yet, shouldn't we be at least as pissed at the federal government? How incompetent were they to hand over all the cash with NO ****ING STRINGS ATTACHED.
But let's wallow in our collective outrage for a minute. Wow, that felt better! I'd just like to interject a different point of view. As an aside: If these were UNION bonuses and AIG said sorry, we can't afford to pay them, I bet the outrage would be the greedy corporation keeping taxpayer money out of the hands of the working man. Corporations like AIG are quite large, they have more than one department. That means that the employees of one department can be exceeding sales quotas, new client quotas, etc. while other departments are really screwing the pooch. Bonuses are MERIT pay, they're INCENTIVES to spur employees to excellence. Many executive salaries have a very low base because profits depend on performance and the "big bucks" are EARNED. It's part of their contract. Hell if unions and their employees don't have to sacrifice (does anyone doubt unions are going to be the chief recipients of the auto bailout) why the hell should nonunion employees? My stepfather was an "executive" (you know, the middle management guys who get their own offices but certainly don't earn near what a CEO does) and we certainly weren't rich. Because he didn't earn an hourly wage, the only way for him to be compensated for long hours (there is no time and a half when you're a salaried employee) were performance based bonuses and raises.
Still, let's pretend these guys are all cigar-smoking poopey-heads who don't deserve one little penny no matter how hard they worked or how many extra hours they put in. I don't see how holding back these bonuses is going to stimulate the economy or improve AIG's bottom line. Were I expecting a bonus that I worked my ass off to earn and was told I wasn't going to get it because congress was stirring the masses up in a frenzy to score a few political points (and keep people from thinking about the reasons all this stimulus can't and won't work), I'd probably think twice about putting in that same effort next year, let alone try harder. Of course, since I'm not the only employee who feels that way, the amount my company earns, and thus its ability to crawl out of bankruptcy is hampered but that's not important. The masses have been able to take it to the big, nasty corporation! Collective outrage is much more important than compensation!
Oh, and since I won't be getting my bonus I won't have any extra disposable income. Some poor schmuck on an assembly line making that big screen TV or new car I was going to buy with my extra money will eventually be laid off because the company can't sell their products. But at least the guy on the assembly line got to bitch about the evil corporation while he's standing in the unemployment line. Oh, and that vacation I was gong to take my family on? Well, I won't be able to afford that anymore either. One less hotel maid, one less desk clerk, one less waiter, one less dishwasher...but at least they too can bitch all the way to the unemployment office.
If we are so concerned about how AIG is running their business perhaps we shouldn't have bailed them out in the first place. The market would've taken care of those bonuses because the company would've gone under, reorganized or been bought out. By the way, AIG was quite successful until they ousted their old CEO and installed a new DEMOCRAT one. Spitzer scared the crap out of the board of directors and the fired the REPUBLICAN who was quite successful while at the helm. You can look it up as soon as you're through being outraged.
Cindie
