It’s time for the government to use its ownership muscle to fire the Board of AIG.
These folks ran the company into the ground. They begged for taxpayer money. Then they agreed to give multiple millions of dollars in bonus money to their employees (who would be out of a job completely if the taxpayers hadn’t ponied up).
Damn it. These managers just don’t get it. They’re still paying bonuses to people who failed.
Yeah, not everyone screwed up. And, there’s the argument that you want to retain employees so you have to pay them competitively.
But, here’s a thought. There’s a whole industry of people who screwed up and still feel entitled to over-sized salaries. Let them go if they find another place that will pay them for their past failures. Replace them with ignorant stupid newcomers.
At least the newcomers don’t have the history of gambling away billions of dollars. How much worse off will AIG, the taxpayers, and the country be?
That was even the theme of a Law and Order TV show Danny and I watched this morning. I don’t get it either.
Someone told me today that the bonuses paid were based on contracts which pre-date the bail-out. Of course, I’m too lazy to have verified that info for myself or anything. 😉
Yes, but…
Someone signed the “contracts” with the employees that guaranteed them the obscene payments when the company was tanking. Regardless whether those contracts were pre-bail-out, after-bail-out, or conveniently dated in a dark room, when the company was failing it would have been reasonable to talk to employees with these contracts and renegotiate. If the person would not renegotiate, then you terminate the relationship. You don’t continue rich employment agreements when the company is sinking.
Companies do this with blue collar and lower level workers all the time. It’s even clear to unions that they have to agree to give backs or their members are laid off.
But, AIG’s executives did not protect their company’s assets or taxpayer money. They continue to do business as usual, pay huge amounts of money to people like them, and then cry poor to the government.
If you are responsible for a company and do not manage your employee contracts, you should loose your job.
All good points, and I’m the last person who should defend any corporation. I was mostly repeating a bit of conversation had amongst some folks earlier in the day, and I, of all people, should know better than to justify any sort of corporate action. The injustices committed by most corporations in the name of the bottom line and/or in the pursuit of profit for an upper-level set of elitists is infuriating, and the profligate waste created by poor time and resource management in almost all corporations sickens me.