(click on image to enlarge)A few points:
- Bailing out AIG (or any other bank) was a BAD IDEA.
- The bonuses were contracturally obligated payments that were intentionally and on purpose left untouched by the bailout bill. A passage meant to rescind these payments was struck out by Senator Chris Dodd.
- The payments amount to .094% of the money.
- $50 billion of the money went to help out other banks (include $36 billion to European banks)
- AIG execs were throwing money at politicians before, during and after the company was bailed out. Wonder if any bailout money found its way into a campagin coffer?
- Did I mention that bailing out AIG (or anyone else) was a BAD IDEA?
Get mad about bailout money getting paid to executives at a failing corporation. I'm mad too. But wake up to the fact that all this manufactured outrage (by Dodd and other politicians) is just a smokescreen to keep you from questioning their policies.
I also believe AIG should have been left to fail, but since they took Fed money, they invited political insanity into their lives.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting sidenote, if I heard the story correctly, is that AIG or one of it's divisions is based in Connecticut which has a law that states contractual wages and bonuses are to be paid as agreed or else a sum equal to double the promised amount must be paid to the employee as a penalty.
If that is accurate, then AIG was in a catch 22. Don't pay the bonuses then be forced to pay double under the law or follow the law (and terms of the tarp agreement) and pay the bonuses and get hosed by a bunch of myopic demagogues.
They were hosed either way....of course, they created their own problems from the start. And I was wrong; it wasn't that interesting of a side note.
Interesting. Didn't know about the "catch 22" law. I agree that AIG and the other banks invited this kind of scrutiny, but what irks me is that Dodd and the rest of Congress are using this whole bonus thing as a smokescreen and our media eat it up.
ReplyDeleteIt shows that either most of the media are in the bag or incredibly naive and, well, dumb. Neither answer makes me want to invest any trust in them.