Washington Times - Obama tries to block AIG's bonuses »
Posted By monicachenoa 8 months, 1 week ago in NewsPresident Obama, seeking to quell anger from taxpayers whom he soon may have to ask to support another bailout, on Monday called for trying to block the $165 million in bonuses that American International Group paid to reward top executives even after taking billions of government bailout dollars.
Read Full Story at washingtontimes.com »
637 Views Share Story 152 Comments Report
Who Also Submitted:
Other Related Articles:
RSS Join the Discussion
+ Add CommentShowing 147 of 152 Comments (view all)
-
69%
monicachenoa8 months, 1 week ago
-
91%
Progressive8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
The company and some federal regulators have said it was obligated by contract to make the payments. NY Atty. Gen. Cuomo said the bonuses might have been fraudulent if AIG officials knew the company couldn't afford them.
Reply
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29739834/ -
50%
Endoscopy8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Much ado about nothing.
Reply
1. The people in question only get their bonuses because they get $1 salary. They already gave up salary so these fools want them to work for nothing.
2. These bonuses were contracted in march 2008. AIG is just living up to their contracts.
3. The stimulus package has an amendment allowing previously contracted bonuses it originally put in by Chris Dodd and reworked in conference by Reid, Pelosie, and treasury.
They are ranting with Schumer trying to say that the government will pass a law taxing those particular bonuses at 100%. That is an impossibility and Schumer knows it. Therefore why are they ranting over what is what they specifically allowed. What are they trying to hide now. -
100%
dunkirk8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Bonuses are typically contractural based on company performance. In no way can they claim success in that area. If it takes a court fight them lets do it, enough of the BS. I've heard enough of the BS about how we need to give execs bonuses to keep them. When the ship is sinking and the cause of the sinking is the execs calling for full speed ahead into a series of ice bergs I'd say that isnt the talent we need to keep.
Reply -
capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user1 Reply
-
namishasinghComment removed: Hard Banned
-
-
44%
Wolfie20078 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Obama knew about this when he signed the Stimulus Pork Spending Bill. There was an amendment in it put there by Sen. Chris Dodd that allowed for the bonuses to be paid to the AIG employees. Obama's just workin his mouth trying to make us believe he is outraged and trying to distract us from his new spending agenda.
Reply-
74%
wtagg8 months, 1 week ago
-
65%
ADAGUY8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Wolfie, again you are full of $hit!
Reply
There was a contract to the execs before the slump ever hit in which they were promised bonuses of given amount. The fact is, that in this particular state, if you get sued and loose, you have to pay double. He had just as well get out of the way and let them collect their bonuses. -
80%
fiftynine8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"Obama knew about this when he signed the Stimulus Pork Spending Bill."....Hey waggie,what did you call the give aways of bushboys..just wondering.
Reply
aT least when Obamas mouth works,it's intelligible,intelligent,and pertaining to the problem at hand...That is a hell of a lot more than we ever got from the idiot bushboy and his sidekick shoot um up cheney. -
50%
ISITJUSTME8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Paulsen and the Treasury is responsible for the AIG bailout and it is not part of TARP. Sen. Dodd's amendment would have prohibited any bonus retroactive but was reduced to post February 2009 while in committe. It was Geithner that requested the change. Geithner has to go.
Reply -
capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user
-
-
-
59%
tadair9198 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
remember the uproar about when the bush administration tried to assume responsibility to keep terry shaivo alive? they (rightfully) charged him with pandering to the christian base.
Reply
what do you think obama is doing by going after these bonuses?
its Public Relations at its finest. While we bicker over CEO pay our attentions have been deflected from the trillion-dollar picture.-
65%
nostalgia8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Bloomberg.com:
Reply
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he will soon announce details of his plan to help banks clean up the non-performing assets that are clogging the financial system.
A bank rescue program unveiled by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner includes a plan to generate about $1 trillion in new consumer lending and to eliminate up to $1 trillion of banks’ legacy assets.
Notice the change in language concerning the "bad" assets when Obama administration officials talk about the plan
They aren't "illiquid assets" or "toxic assets" any longer
Now the new phrase is "legacy assets"
Then the Obama budget - $3.55 trillion
That's another $5.55 trillion on the table
Going to need lots of distractions to get that by the public -
-
-
100%
Leemck028 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Tadair, I think you have the apples in the orange cart. Terry, though tragic, had little to do with the poor handling of the economy. By making PR the point, you are missing the point.
Reply
Closer to that argument, we heard the PR on poor Ms. Shaivo but not on Iraq, Enron, World Comm, and K-Street to a point of resolve. Was "W" outraged about the thousands that lost their pensions from greed? Did 'W' come to the public and admit the number of people killed in Iraq or New Orleans? What was Enron about or K-Street? I think to have had these stories in the open, as the bonuses are now, the nation's situation would be different now.
-
-
-
64%
nostalgia8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"Besides the ones that took the bonuses got themselves into this mess and then they're rewarded for screwing up?"
Reply
Those are the ones in the London office
Even if they tax the bonus money at 95% or 100% like some Senators are threatening, how do you get the money from people who aren't citizens of the US? -
Global_WarmerComment removed: Abusive2 Replies
-
-
46%
simonsez8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Not much difference between this and the 9000 earmarks in the Omnibus Bill. A lot of posturing and indignation, but very little fire.
Reply
I have never heard whether it is the top people only or spread out among the 6000 or 8000 employees. If it were everybody EXCEPT top management, let them have it.-
100%
fiftynine8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"I have never heard whether it is the top people only or spread out among the 6000 or 8000 employees. If it were everybody EXCEPT top management, let them have it."...
Reply
Does it friggin matter ? They are know receiving MY money and i ain't giving it so they can party and go on vacations..They are sucking money from a failed company at our expense..F--K um.
-
-
100%
Progressive8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Some of the "retention bonus" recipients have already left the company:
Reply
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/ind...
FTA:
Lawmakers competed yesterday to rain down the harshest criticism on AIG, which received more than $170 billion in assistance from taxpayers, after it handed out the bonuses to 400 staff at the financial products division (AIG FP) that caused its near-collapse.
A total of 73 workers were paid $1 million or more to stay at AIG to help it unwind its $1,600 billion portfolio of credit default swaps.
...seven of AIG’s bonus recipients received more than $4 million each – a larger amount than the stricken insurer had previously indicated – while the top 10 were paid a combined $42 million. -
63%
cushi8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"President Obama, seeking to quell anger from taxpayers whom he soon may have to ask to support another bailout, on Monday called for trying to block the $165 million in bonuses that American International Group paid to reward top executives even after taking billions of government bailout dollars."
Reply
This opening statement is opinionated and told me right away that the article would be slanted to a certain point of view. I am as angry as anyone else about the bonuses AIG has given out, but I'm not presuming to know the President's mind or motives. That kind of slanted reporting raises red flags immediately for me.
As for those bonuses, I would fine AIG by the same amount it gave out in bonuses, citing poor performance and poor judgment, and gross negligence in doling out to the very people who perpetrated this gross fraud on the people huge bonuses. AIG can suck it up, since it was stupid enough to do that. And not another thin dime of our money to it, either. -
60%
hyperbola8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Taxpayers Forced To Bailout Zionist Gangsters
Reply
Ben Shalom Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, is the dedicated Zionist Jew behind the taxpayer-funded bailout of Maurice Greenberg's criminal enterprise, A.I.G.
...It should come as no surprise that the key person behind this unprecedented government bailout of A.I.G., a huge Zionist criminal operation, is himself a devoted Zionist. Ben Shalom Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve System, is another Hebrew-speaking scion of the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York City, like Michael Chertoff and Alvin K. Hellerstein....
...Ben Shalom (Hebrew for "Son of Peace") Bernanke went to Harvard University and graduated with a B.A. in economics in 1975. Throughout college, however, Bernanke had a very odd summer job for an Ivy League student of economics. Every summer he returned to Dillon, South Carolina, to work for Alan Heller Schafer, the well-known Jewish criminal and political boss who ran a sprawling roadside gambling and drinking establishment called South of the Border....
...After an 18-month investigation, 30 residents of Dillon County were indicted on charges of violating federal election laws, most of them for buying votes. As the head of the election corruption and vote- buying machine, Schafer was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison.... This was the well-known Jewish criminal that Ben Shalom Bernanke, a student of economics at Harvard, worked for every summer. It is simply impossible that Bernanke was unaware of Schafer's wide-scale criminal activities, which were legendary in the state.
...After college, Bernanke earned a doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his adviser was Stanley "Stan" Fischer.
Fischer, born in Rhodesia, also happens to be the current Governor of the Bank of Israel. If you look at Bernanke's biography you will find that he has spent his entire life engaged only in Zionist activities. I have not found any period of Bernanke's life when he was involved in anything other than Zionism....
http://www.rense.com/general83/bdc.htm-
-
56%
hyperbola8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
WHAT DOES AMERICAN ZIONISM HAVE IN COMMON WITH THE CURRENT FINANCIAL MELTDOWN?
Reply
Simple: top level personnel. Take our exhibit A: Bernard Madoff.
.... According to the Jewish Journal: "The victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s massive Wall Street swindle – perhaps as much as $50 billion, will include many Jewish non-profits that have been large beneficiaries of Madoff’s contribution."
Apart from running his company and being a former chairman and director of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASDAQ), Madoff is a very committed Zionist who has served as the treasurer of two leading Zionist organizations. Like Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, Sanford Weill of Citibank, and Maurice Greenberg of A.I.G., the major culprits behind the $2 trillion bail-out, Madoff is another New York Zionist who has committed a massive financial fraud and cheated Americans and others out of untold billions of dollars....
http://i.dadabase.ca/2008/12/what-does-american-zi...
-
-
jonathan030786Comment removed: Hard Banned
-
85%
Will13138 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
seems that Dodd .. actually tried to limit not enhance the bonuses..
Reply
An amendment in the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress Friday would severely restrict bonuses and other forms of compensation for top executives at companies receiving federal bailout money.
The amendment by Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, would impose wide-ranging restrictions on how -- and by how much -- top executives at companies receiving federal bailout money can be compensated.
The measure would cap bonuses -- already often far more lucrative than base salaries for top executives -- and could require executives at companies that have already received bailout money to pay back some of their compensation if it exceeded certain limits.
Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, said the amendment was aimed at imposing "tough new limits on huge bonuses" for executives at firms receiving money from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
"The decisions of certain Wall Street executives to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers have seriously undermined public confidence in efforts to stabilize the economy. American taxpayers deserve better," Dodd said.
But some financial industry advisers and analysts said Saturday that the amendment was far tougher than what even President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed recently, particularly in the number of high-paid executives and employees it would affect.
It will be up to the Treasury Department to implement the restrictions in Dodd's amendment if the stimulus package, which is awaiting Obama's approval, becomes law.
Among the many provisions of Dodd's measure:
• Firms taking more than $500 million from TARP would be required to restrict compensation paid to the 20 top-earning employees and other key executives. For companies getting $250 million to $500 million from TARP, that includes senior executives and the top 10 earning employees. The number of affected employees would go down from there for companies taking less than $250 million from TARP.
• Severance payments known as "golden parachutes" for senior executive officers or the next five most highly compensated employees would be banned at companies receiving TARP funds, ending those often sizeable severance payments for departing executives.-
90%
Will13138 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
op executives at TARP-funded firms would be barred from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual salary. For many top executives, that would mean a dramatic reduction. The Wall Street Journal cited as an example the 2007 compensation of Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth D. Lewis, who was paid a salary of $1.5 million that year, but actually earned a total of $16.4 million including a bonus, stock-option awards and restricted stock. At the same salary level, Lewis' 2009 compensation would be restricted to about $2.25 million under the Dodd provisions, the Journal said.
Reply
• The secretary of the Treasury must review past compensation paid to the top 25 employees of TARP recipients and seek reimbursements "if those payments were contrary to the public interest or inconsistent with the purposes of the [stimulus package] or the TARP," according to Dodd's statement.
The restrictions could have unintended consequences, some financial industry insiders said Saturday.
"Basically, this is encouraging the sales force -- the lifeblood of any company -- to look for work elsewhere, to leave [TARP-backed companies] for healthier companies where they can make more money," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Washington-based Financial Services Roundtable, a trade association representing 100 of the largest financial firms in the country.
"If the goal of TARP is to make companies stronger, to get them back on their feet so they can stand on their own, and this drives away key executives, this is a problem," he told CNN in a telephone interview.
Talbott also posed the question of what would happen on the Dodd amendment's sliding scale of restricted compensation at large firms when the top 20 earning employees are restricted and move down in income as a result.
"They are no longer that company's top 20 earners, others in the company now become the top 20. Are those 20 (then) under the compensation restrictions?" he asked.
Jim Reda, a New York-based compensation and corporate governance consultant, said TARP-funded firms could face a dilemma if the Dodd restrictions are imposed: either lose key executives to other companies or pay back the TARP money immediately and possibly jeopardize the company's capital position.
"It's not good for taxpayers to have [TARP] money in organizations where the executives are leaving or the company is weakened," Reda told CNN.
"My suspicion is that there are a lot of loopholes in this, " Reda said. "What it accomplishes is that it really confuses everybody."
There are questions about how the restrictions would apply retroactively to companies that already have received TARP money, Reda said, and questions about how Dodd's restrictions fit with looser restrictions on executive compensation proposed by Obama and Geithner.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/14/stimulus.pa... -
Neutral
girish-laikhra4 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Thanks for post. It’s really imformative stuff.
Reply
I really like to read.Hope to learn a lot and have a nice experience here! my best regards guys!
--------------------
GirishLaikhra
-------------------
Merchant Account Canada--Merchant Account Canada
-
-
50%
Pecossam8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
In case no one has yet mentioned it, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Connecticut), placed an exception in the bail-out bill that specifically applied to "executive bonuses". Just as the Democrats did with the sub-prime mortgage meltdown fiasco (to a large extent due to the Community Readjustment Act), they are now trying to pretend they knew nothing about the executive bonus exemption(s) and are putting on their show for the public. It's the S.O.S.! As long as they can get away with it, they'll do it. Oh, how they do love a gullible public.
Reply -
45%
Pecossam8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Dear Fellow Propeller Heads,
Reply
All of President Obama's supposed "outrage" over the AIG bonuses is really intended to keep us from noticing his proposal for our COMBAT-WOUNDED VETERANS:
He plans to CHARGE THE WOUNDED VETERANS INSURANCE COMPANIES for the care they require and receive at our Veterans Hospitals! What a SLAP in the face to our Veterans! Just what has "The One" been smoking and WHAT NEXT?!-
-
70%
lfergie8128 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Pecossam said "He plans to CHARGE THE WOUNDED VETERANS INSURANCE COMPANIES for the care they require and receive at our Veterans Hospitals! "
Reply
How does this hurt you or the veterans? If true it will at least be better than the no treatment they received under the Bush administration. It has always been the policy of one insurance company to make sure that the other pays their share. I have two insurance policies and they cross check to make sure that I don't get money for a bill that the other paid. Besides, it will save the country money and still provide treatment for the veterans so where ios your problem with this. I thought everyone were mad at the insurance companies for not paying bills like they're suppose to. -
86%
fsev418 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I suspect (note; suspect but can't definitely prove) this is aimed at insurance companies that accept money from employer provided insurance to an employed vet and then try to push all claims by that vet through the VA system. If the insurance company is receiving payment for an individuals health insurance they should pay for that individuals health problems unless there is a positive link to a service provided source.
Reply
From what I've read of the proposal it is only a proposal and not accepted policy, it does not ask vets to pay for their own insurance or care. and it does not deny any vet any health care. It simply makes insurance companies that accept money to provide an individual with health care to actually provide that care.
One should also note that President Obama's new budget gives VA the largest budget increase in recent history.
-
-
lixiaomei912Comment removed: Hard Banned
-
50%
ChefEOD8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
You gotta love it all...
Reply
"Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are - Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama."
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D...
Nice list of Dems and Republicans alike-
-
Neutral
Leemck028 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
ChefEOD, but is the President sweeping the bonus issue under the rug. I feel, sorry (LOL) for AIG, they gave money and don't have influence. They really are a failing company, losing money on every count. They got mixed up on which administration they were giving to. I supposed they thought it would turn out like Enron.
Reply
-
-
-
33%
BB648 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Hold on. What division is awarding these bonuses? If the people hear are sales people working for a profitable sector of AIG, they should receive the bonuses. If the people here are commissioned sales people, many times they're working for a $1.00 per year with a pay structure based solely on performance. I've contacted, Gwen Moore, Russ Finegold and Herb Kohl asking who and how the bonus structures are set up but have heard nothing back.
Reply
-
-
44%
william-sire8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Not even the first of the Obama blunders. Certainly wont be the last. The true Obama is being revealed. He was brilliant at reading the TelePrompTer but he doesn't know didily. This is hybrid clone president. A Jimmy Carter brain in a Bill Clinton public persona.
Reply
God help this country.-
80%
dunkirk8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
ROFLMAO, maybe you mis read the amendment, that is assuming you read it and not parroted back Limpaws blabber. It seems Dodds amendment LIMITS what companies can pay in bonuses if they accept TARP money. SO how does that make it bad??
Reply -
-
-
Neutral
MarkJones0014 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Thanks for post. It’s really informative stuff.
Reply
I really like to read.Hope to learn a lot and have a nice experience here! my best regards guys!
-----
FriendyAnil
----
Point of Sale Terminals--Point of Sale Terminals
-
-
33%
BB648 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
If the Obamanation is that concerned with the money being spent, why doesn't he suspend the salaries of the Congress and his own. Stop all pay of the elected officials. End government benefits for the too. No health care, no pensions, no free parking, no free cars, no drivers, and worst of all, get rid of the dinning rooms. The free lunch is over. If they chose to maintain their programs, let them use their campaign funds for the benefits. Another help would be term limits. If the president can only serve 8 years, the House and Senate should follow the same rules. Bye, bye, Franks, Dodd, Bird, Kennedy, McCain and the rest.
Reply-
80%
ybdogsct8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
BB64:
Reply
"Another help would be term limits. If the president can only serve 8 years, the House and Senate should follow the same rules. Bye, bye, Franks, Dodd, Bird, Kennedy, McCain and the rest."
Term limits was a promise made by Newt Gingrich in his 1994 Contract with America.
http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html
Interestingly enough, after Republicans in 1994 (and even after Republicans controlled all 3 branches of the federal government from 2001-2006), Gingrich's promise was never fulfilled.
-
-
-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply
-
-
100%
fsev418 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
These bonuses may in fact be a primary cause for the whole problem. Did the bonuses reward short term or long term growth and profit?
Reply
If short term, ie.- the amount of "business" generated by the trader (or crook) over the previous year, it encouraged ever riskier "swaps" to build the "traders" business volume. The execs overseeing the bonuses admit that they don't fully understand what these "traders" were doing so they need them to help untangle the mess. This appears to be terrible incompetence on the execs part and the ever popular greed on the "traders" part, and maybe even fraud on their part.
If the bonuses were based on long term profitability, say perhaps five or ten years, the "traders" may have been more cautious and problems may have been caught sooner. -
100%
TheNewsseeker8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
It is nothing but logical: There can´t be made any extra payments, if the money is only borrowed by taxpayers. The 165$ should be spent on repairing, as far as possible, the greatest damages of the crisis first and save liquidity for everyday business. Bonuses are, as far as I know, rewards for special merits, so: Who of our managers could be worth them?
Reply -
judah-hertzComment removed: Hard Banned
-
-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned
-
-
-
75%
coolslow8 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I'd rather let AIG keep the bonus money than have the government establish a precedent for passing an ex post facto law making last year's legal actions, illegal today, and subject to punishment. What would stop them from retroactively raising previous years' tax rates and asking for "back taxes"?
Reply
Add a Comment
Sign In With Your Propeller Account
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.