I am impressed.

[DC Vol]

it's the employees mistake for signing a guaranteed contract?

Would they be getting any bonus money if the government didn't bail them out?

 

[droski]

Would they be getting any bonus money if the government didn't bail them out?

No. Would the guy in an iowa call center be getting a salary if the govenment didn't bail them out? The difference? The other guy would now be employed somewhere else and would get his bonus. Apparently loyalty was their biggest mistake.

Let me ask you a question. WHy should people who make less than 250K get a bonus if no bonuses should ever be paid? obviously this is nothing more than a go after the rich thing. jealousy. plain and simple.

 

[DC Vol]

No. Would the guy in an iowa call center be getting a salary if the govenment didn't bail them out? The difference? The other guy would now be employed somewhere else and would get his bonus. Apparently loyalty was their biggest mistake.

Let me ask you a question. WHy should people who make less than 250K get a bonus if no bonuses should ever be paid? obviously this is nothing more than a go after the rich thing. jealousy. plain and simple.

Bonuses should absolutely be incentive based. That's how they work in sports, that how they work at my job. That's how they should work at corporations. If you earn your money, you get paid your money. If you gamble on a low salary/high bonus payment structure and that gamble doesn't pay off?


That's entirely on them. The problem I have with this still boils down to one particular detail:

They're not getting paid a bonus out of AIG earnings for 2008.
They're getting paid a bonus from taxpayer funds from a absolutely abhorrent 2008.


Okay, I fold. I held back a key piece of information (that I thought you would look up). The individual that is at the center of this rant is Jake DeSantis. The problem? He was the Vice President of AIG Financial Products. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[droski]

so? you know how many vp of financial products there are? who is to say he had anything to do with what went on.

 

[DC Vol]

so? you know how many vp of financial products there are? who is to say he had anything to do with what went on.

I don't know, do you? AIGFP was a fairly small division with ~400 employees. If there were a lot as you're attempting to allude to... that's probably a clear reason why it failed.


Too many chiefs, to few Indians.

 

[droski]

I don't know, do you? AIGFP was a fairly small division with ~400 employees. If there were a lot as you're attempting to allude to... that's probably a clear reason why it failed.


Too many chiefs, to few Indians.

400 employees is small?

That VP probably never even talked to 3/4 of the people in that division.

 

[rjd970]

so? you know how many vp of financial products there are? who is to say he had anything to do with what went on.

Are you saying you think the guys in the financial products division, every last one of them, deserve a taxpayer funded bonus?

 

[rjd970]

i very much doubt the people who gave it back thought they didn't deserve it.

Well, what they think and what is reality are more often than not different cases. People working in the financial derivatives market don't deserve a dime, regardless of what they might think.

 

[DC Vol]

400 employees is small?

That VP probably never even talked to 3/4 of the people in that division.

compared to the ~125,000 that AIG as a whole has, yeah. I'd say 400 is small.

Are you saying 400 employees would rate 2 or more VPs?

 

[BigPapaVol]

Are you saying you think the guys in the financial products division, every last one of them, deserve a taxpayer funded bonus?

Couched that way, of course it sounds ridiculous to pay bonuses.

In the context of ever getting the money back, it's an entirely different animal. Allowing the money makers to go away over this is senseless when seen through an ROI type of analysis I guarantee.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[allvol123]

Couched that way, of course it sounds ridiculous to pay bonuses.

In the context of ever getting the money back, it's an entirely different animal. Allowing the money makers to go away over this is senseless when seen through an ROI type of analysis I guarantee.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

Of course it is ridiculous to pay contracts, especially when rage has been fabricated over them. We got to do what makes people feel better. I mean this is big time outrageousness in comparison to the money government wastes. This has got to be at least the equivalent of a drop of rain in an ocean.

 

[gsvol]

My question is and has been; where did the other $72.8 billion go, specifically???

Is the average American too stupid to understand???

Evidently so, since no explanation has been offered.

Maybe the brainiac Droski can explain this to us all.

 

[rjd970]

Couched that way, of course it sounds ridiculous to pay bonuses.

In the context of ever getting the money back, it's an entirely different animal. Allowing the money makers to go away over this is senseless when seen through an ROI type of analysis I guarantee.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

It's extremely frustrating then. The free market is predicated on doing whats best for yourself and self-accountability, but those rules don't apply to the "money makers". It's like they get all the benefits of profiting from the system and don't have to deal with any of the consequences of bad decisions. Whether or not they do a good job is immaterial, the talent still gets a paycheck when everybody else doesn't get that same benefit. Yes, I understand people on an individual basis lost jobs and what not, but I am talking about this in the context of your ROI argument.

If AIG can't fail because they are too big, then at the very least they should have let the financial products division go belly up and start it over from scratch. Bonuses going to this same division is absurd. This isn't about individual bonuses and huge salaries, it is about principle and what the average investor would be told if it happened to them. The only thing this whole deal says is once your company is big enough, accountability doesn't apply anymore.

 

[rjd970]

Of course it is ridiculous to pay contracts, especially when rage has been fabricated over them. We got to do what makes people feel better. I mean this is big time outrageousness in comparison to the money government wastes. This has got to be at least the equivalent of a drop of rain in an ocean.

I agree with much of your sarcasm here. We shouldn't lose sight of the what the idiots in D.C. have been doing for years on a much bigger scale. The AIG garbage is a microcosm of this. Undeserved compensation for doing a bad job (automatic raises for congress, bonuses for execs), driving a (country, company) into the ground financially, and no accountability because they are the ones "making the rules" or are "too big to fail".

 

[MG1968]

the "stimulus" bill had to be passed, quickly. so quickly that there wasn't time to read all 1100 pages, so off it went and passed with party line votes in both Houses (the 3 RINO's don't count anymore, useful idiots never do).

from there, it sat on the President's desk for nearly 5 days.

all the while containing the language that preserved the bonus payouts. Geithner knew, Dodd knew, Frank knew, Obama knew. If any of them ever said differently, they'd be lying through their teeth.

the outrage, even by the American people, is disingenuous at best, hypocritical at it's worst. If the populist outrage were really intellectually honest, it would have been properly directed at the 3.8 billion in "little porky projects" as Schmucky Schumer called the pork contained in the omnibus spending bill.

The average American, from childhood, understands that keeping your word is important. Honoring legally binding contracts is important. Now the government is saying that it doesn't have to honor the contracts it enters into and it will use punitive taxation to punish the other party if necessary, just to save face.

this is "hope" and "change"?

 

[BigPapaVol]

It's extremely frustrating then. The free market is predicated on doing whats best for yourself and self-accountability, but those rules don't apply to the "money makers". It's like they get all the benefits of profiting from the system and don't have to deal with any of the consequences of bad decisions. Whether or not they do a good job is immaterial, the talent still gets a paycheck when everybody else doesn't get that same benefit. Yes, I understand people on an individual basis lost jobs and what not, but I am talking about this in the context of your ROI argument.

If AIG can't fail because they are too big, then at the very least they should have let the financial products division go belly up and start it over from scratch. Bonuses going to this same division is absurd. This isn't about individual bonuses and huge salaries, it is about principle and what the average investor would be told if it happened to them. The only thing this whole deal says is once your company is big enough, accountability doesn't apply anymore.

I have no idea what the first sentence means, but your first paragraph is still backward looking at folks who are no longer with the company, rather than forward looking toward any type of return analysis. The backward ROI analysis is worthless because the profitability of these people has been overshadowed by now fired people who wrote a slew of credit default swaps 5 years ago.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[rjd970]

Honoring legally binding contracts is important. Now the government is saying that it doesn't have to honor the contracts it enters into and it will use punitive taxation to punish the other party if necessary, just to save face.

this is "hope" and "change"?

I understand. But let me ask you this.....Congress passed a bill years ago that guarantees them an automatic raise every year. Do you think this legally binding agreement should be honored? Do you think Congress should get a raise this year simply because it is legally what is supposed to happen? Whatever happened to raises and bonuses being paid on performance? What performance has congress demonstrated that deserves a pay raise? What did AIG do last year that deserves a raise?

The problem here is AIG and congress both, need some measure of accountability that the rest of us out in the real world have to play by everyday. If I don't do a good job at work, I don't expect a bonus or raise. It should be the same way at Congress and all these TARP companies that needed to be bailed out.

 

[DC Vol]

I understand. But let me ask you this.....Congress passed a bill years ago that guarantees them an automatic raise every year. Do you think this legally binding agreement should be honored? Do you think Congress should get a raise this year simply because it is legally what is supposed to happen? Whatever happened to raises and bonuses being paid on performance? What performance has congress demonstrated that deserves a pay raise? What did AIG do last year that deserves a raise?

The problem here is AIG and congress both, need some measure of accountability that the rest of us out in the real world have to play by everyday. If I don't do a good job at work, I don't expect a bonus or raise. It should be the same way at Congress and all these TARP companies that needed to be bailed out.

But now we're on a slippery slope. You have to have your pay be commensurate with the Cost of Living in your area.

 

[KB5252]

I understand. But let me ask you this.....Congress passed a bill years ago that guarantees them an automatic raise every year. Do you think this legally binding agreement should be honored? Do you think Congress should get a raise this year simply because it is legally what is supposed to happen? Whatever happened to raises and bonuses being paid on performance? What performance has congress demonstrated that deserves a pay raise? What did AIG do last year that deserves a raise?

The problem here is AIG and congress both, need some measure of accountability that the rest of us out in the real world have to play by everyday. If I don't do a good job at work, I don't expect a bonus or raise. It should be the same way at Congress and all these TARP companies that needed to be bailed out.

This depends a lot on which department we are talking about. Many if not all of these guys who were scheduled to receive these "bonuses" were men who had nothing to do with the departments that ran AIG into the ground. These were people who made little if any salary up front and depended on these bonuses for their income. To make it worse many of these people who never got paid also lost half their savings in the stock market.

Congress will make sure they are taken care of, as well as their families (many of whom work in this same industry and whose companies have already been paid their bonuses). Congress is corrupt and greedy, the more I hear about them the clearer it becomes. They lie cheat and steal to get what they want and make sure the blame is passed and focused anywhere but where it belongs, on their shoulders.

 

[MG1968]

I understand. But let me ask you this.....Congress passed a bill years ago that guarantees them an automatic raise every year. Do you think this legally binding agreement should be honored? Do you think Congress should get a raise this year simply because it is legally what is supposed to happen? Whatever happened to raises and bonuses being paid on performance? What performance has congress demonstrated that deserves a pay raise? What did AIG do last year that deserves a raise?

The problem here is AIG and congress both, need some measure of accountability that the rest of us out in the real world have to play by everyday. If I don't do a good job at work, I don't expect a bonus or raise. It should be the same way at Congress and all these TARP companies that needed to be bailed out.

part of AIG was sold to UBS, before that happened, it's books had to be cleaned up (legally). The gentlemen referenced earlier in this thread was part of the group responsible for that sale. Before that, he was responsible for net profits of 100 million dollars to AIG and he had NOTHING to do with running the company into the ground. he was asked to come back for $1/year with the promise of a bonus, or whatever you want to call it, to be paid some time in March 2009.

that man earned the money he was contractually eligible to receive. he probably worked harder in the last 6 months than Barney Frank or Barack Obama have worked in the last 6 years.

 

[rjd970]

I have no idea what the first sentence means, but your first paragraph is still backward lookingcat folks who are no longer with the company, rather than forward looking toward any type of return analysis. The backward ROI analysis is worthless because the profitability of these people has been overshadowed by now fired people who wrote a slew of credit default swaps 5 years ago.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

What do you think those idiots who wrote the default swaps were telling everybody when the money was rolling in? I guarantee it was "I deserve a big bonus, look at all the money I am making the company". This is the same type argument. "I deserve this bonus, because I am going to pull the company out of this...its best in the interest of ROI."

Let me make one thing clear. I am not against these bonuses being paid out. If they are really the talent, and believe what they are selling, they deserve every penny. But what should be happening is these bonuses should be set aside and left to accumulate, when the company as a whole is profitable again, massive bonuses should be handed out to all this talent that turned things around. Prove your talent, and get your money. What's the difference in getting one massive bonus down the road that averages out to industry standard over the previous years it wasn't paid? It shouldn't be automatic every year simply because they say they are going to do a good job. That is crap, and it isn't the way things work in the real world where you get paid for doing a good job afterward. There is no accountability anymore. By your way of thinking, if what they do still fails, they still got their taxpayer funded bonus and have moved on to the next job, and they did it under the guise of ROI, which just happened to be a bad investment.

No way a bonus should be handed out this year to anybody at AIG. What is the CEO making this year in salary? $1? Good for him. He is worth every penny in any massive payments based on stock performance because of the job he did. These guys that are demanding these bonuses can live off their 6 figure salaries and defer bonuses until what they say they are going to do actually yields results.

 

[rjd970]

This depends a lot on which department we are talking about. Many if not all of these guys who were scheduled to receive these "bonuses" were men who had nothing to do with the departments that ran AIG into the ground. These were people who made little if any salary up front and depended on these bonuses for their income. To make it worse many of these people who never got paid also lost half their savings in the stock market.

Congress will make sure they are taken care of, as well as their families (many of whom work in this same industry and whose companies have already been paid their bonuses). Congress is corrupt and greedy, the more I hear about them the clearer it becomes. They lie cheat and steal to get what they want and make sure the blame is passed and focused anywhere but where it belongs, on their shoulders.

I work for a massive worldwide company and my yearly "bonus" or deferred payment, or whatever everybody is calling it now, is based entirely on company performance. My specific job has very little to do with the company's overall bottom line. Because I do a good job but the company had a bad year does that mean I deserve a smaller bonus? Of course not, but that is the way it is. On the flip side, if the company does really well, I get a bigger bonus, even though my job specifically had very little to do with it. Is that right? Of course not, I didn't "deserve" it per se, but it is the way the game is played.

Your second paragraph is dead on.

 

[allvol123]

I work for a massive worldwide company and my yearly "bonus" or deferred payment, or whatever everybody is calling it now, is based entirely on company performance. My specific job has very little to do with the company's overall bottom line. Because I do a good job but the company had a bad year does that mean I deserve a smaller bonus? Of course not,

Of course you DO. You choose to work for that company and that is the reward policy they run on. So it is a fact that you deserve a smaller bonus if the company does poorly. You chose and continune to choose to keep yourself employed there.

 

[rjd970]

Of course you DO. You choose to work for that company and that is the reward policy they run on. So it is a fact that you deserve a smaller bonus if the company does poorly. You chose and continune to choose to keep yourself employed there.

Way to not even address the issue at hand. Your post is complete horsesh*t. And for what it's worth, without the financial collapse last year we would have done really well, so it isn't even really the company's fault.

These guys are acting like they are entitled to a contractual bonus up front despite the company's performance. I get what is called "spot bonuses" for a job well done throughout the year for something specific I have done, and I get it AFTER I did it. This is on top of my annual bonus. Obviously this system of just handing out bonuses because they are contractually obligated, without any accountability to the company's bottom line didn't really work.

If these bonuses are really what is needed to keep these guys around to fix the problem then they should be deferred until actual results start coming in. Pray tell, where is the accountability in any of this the way it is being done?

 

[allvol123]

Way to not even address the issue at hand. Your post is complete horsesh*t. And for what it's worth, without the financial collapse last year we would have done really well, so it isn't even really the company's fault.

These guys are acting like they are entitled to a contractual bonus up front despite the company's performance. I get what is called "spot bonuses" for a job well done throughout the year for something specific I have done, and I get it AFTER I did it. This is on top of my annual bonus. Obviously this system of just handing out bonuses because they are contractually obligated, without any accountability to the company's bottom line didn't really work.

If these bonuses are really what is needed to keep these guys around to fix the problem then they should be deferred until actual results start coming in. Pray tell, where is the accountability in any of this the way it is being done?

I addressed a particular point you made. Your point is 100% incorrect. Agreements mean something or they do to some people. Don't come back with "of course not" on what bonus you deserve if your company performs poorly while you do a great individual job. If you don't like the agreements you subject yourself to, find a new one. I don't like the mindset that sits behind that statement.