No retention bonus should equate to no motivation to stick around working for a failing company. I guess we’ll end up depending on employees who weren’t deemed critical enough to get bonuses being able to fix the problem.

I am still waiting to hear from the first politician who is returning money donated to them by AIG or any of the other bailout firms.

JeffinSac on March 24, 2009 at 8:40 AM

I’m still waiting for the outrage on that and other topics.

Is that the plan? Force a collapse and a loss of $170 billion (or more) with absolutely nothing to show for it?

If that isn’t your plan, maybe you need to specify how to get from where we are to where you think we should be.

I wish we hadn’t given them $170 billion in the first place; but since that idiocy is done and gone, can we at least try to get the business to function so we can get something useful out of it? Or does that offend you too much to try?

gekkobear on March 23, 2009 at 11:42 PM

The “or more” is probably closer. Liddy said the FD had unwound $1Trillion in bad assets, and had $1.6 Trillion to go.

But hey, saving a company from a Trillion dollar nightmare isn’t worth a bonus, right?

“Its punitive intent is increasingly transparent,” Tribe says. “when you have Chuck Grassley calling on [executives] to commit suicide, and people responding to pitch fork sentiment, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t an attempt to punish an identifiable set of individuals who are the subject of understandable outrage

We should have let the companies failed, and thrown everybody that committed fraud, from the homeowner, all the way up the corporate ladder in jail, and reinstated Glass/Steigel.
DFCtomm on March 23, 2009 at 10:49 PM

It’s places like this where common ground might be forged by non-leftists against the mindless left. Commenters here detailed their experience with large construction companies forming their own mortgage units. It reeked conflict-of-interest, similar to the effect of repealing Glass/Stegall. Decentralized systems, with many feedbacks, are stronger.

Many things would not be possible without corporations, but to ignore the shadow side is folly. They are large collectives, and anyone who has qualms about how the bottom line is enhanced won’t be working there for long. A libertine approach to corporatism melded to big government gives an unpatriotic stew, an amoral nightmare. All human values can’t be reduced to a bottom line. The disconnects created by these modern entities (even falsely perceived!) are every bit as real to a community as a politburo in Moscow making decisions about heating in Siberia.

I am trying to make a distinction that would be exploited by leftists to trash all economic freedom. Leftism, with its taxes and regulations, sickens and kills small businesses. It encourages the corporate giantism that leftists claim to abhor. In our system, it takes big fish to grease the machine enough to function past the edge of profitability. That must change.

After the leftist madness burns out, I hope better minds can assess the 19th Century construct of corporatism and make some positive adjustments.

They had plenty of time to show for it, and all they do is evade accountability and responsibility – as business has managed to do for the last 30+ years.

sethstorm on March 23, 2009 at 9:15 PM

Ok, I have no idea what you’ve just said.

If these people are useless, overpaid, or unnecessary; well the company is on the ropes financially. Don’t fiddle with bonuses, fire them. Trim the fat to try to save the profitable ventures.

If these people are useful, necessary, and their harder work can turn the company into a profit making venture; then bonuses for performance seem appropriate encouragement to get the desired performance.

Unless of course the goal is to punish everyone, drive out any good workers, discourage work, and funnel money into this sh*t sandwich until is finally dies losing the $170 billion plus in funding… in which case; your plan is perfect.

Is that the plan? Force a collapse and a loss of $170 billion (or more) with absolutely nothing to show for it?

If that isn’t your plan, maybe you need to specify how to get from where we are to where you think we should be.

I wish we hadn’t given them $170 billion in the first place; but since that idiocy is done and gone, can we at least try to get the business to function so we can get something useful out of it? Or does that offend you too much to try?

AIG epitomizes the worst of “capitalism” and the worst of socialism. Privatize the profits, probably fraudulent, and socialize the losses onto the peasants and their kids and grandkids. They are nothing but a gaggle of Welfare Queens now.

MB4 on March 23, 2009 at 7:28 PM

There is enough finger pointing to go around, but AIG isn’t the problem, the problem is in Washington. Every one of the political aristocracy that voted for this are the one’s trying to bankrupt the country in order to save their own asses. If you follow the money it all leads back the Washington. They are ALL crooks, but its always everyone elses’ guy that’s bad, not mine. When you people wake up and figure out that its your guy screwing you, your children and their children, then maybe you’ll put his ass in the unemployment line.

Conservative congressmen are rare birds in California and I was shocked when some (including mine) voted for the tax. A lot of strange things are happening and it pays to look a little deeper.

Tom McClintock explained his vote and it’s worth a look.

HR 1586 would tax 90 percent of the bonuses that push an executive’s earnings above $250,000 IF his company has received more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds. I reluctantly supported HR 1586 for a simple and singular reason: it will stop or slow the corporate bailouts that are bankrupting our country. Until HR 1586, there has been no downside for the executives who persuaded Congress to hand them the keys to our nation’s treasury and who are now plundering it with impunity…

Many will disagree, but he makes a logical case for his vote.

Feedie on March 23, 2009 at 9:46 PM

It’s a sly way to put the brakes on the bailouts, but hitting executives in the wallet is a sure way to discourage them from seeking a bailout.

Private contracts are undone all the time.

[..]

A legion of lawyers makes its living challenging such contracts, under a variety of legal theories, including fraud.

Walk into any civil courthouse across the country and just watch.

[..]

MB4 on March 23, 2009 at 7:59 PM

Undone? That’s a little vague. In what ways exactly? Through breeches? Annulments? Abrogation? Termination? Expiration? Mutually? Unilaterally? What about an arbitrary unilateral breech from one party (which happens to be the federal government-thus giving different meaning to private)…with a little ex post facto legislation to boot?

Adhering to the language of original contract amounts to fraud in what way?

Cases inside civil courthouses does not equate to automatic validity of said cases. So what is to be learned exactly by witnessing several cases around the country? That volume is a substitute for a reasoned and sound argument?

Tom McClintock explained his vote and it’s worth a look.

HR 1586 would tax 90 percent of the bonuses that push an executive’s earnings above $250,000 IF his company has received more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds. I reluctantly supported HR 1586 for a simple and singular reason: it will stop or slow the corporate bailouts that are bankrupting our country. Until HR 1586, there has been no downside for the executives who persuaded Congress to hand them the keys to our nation’s treasury and who are now plundering it with impunity…

Many will disagree, but he makes a logical case for his vote.

It sounded to me that Obama, on 60 minutes, expressed concern that the AIU bonus bill may be unconstitutional because it singles out a small group of people.

But that could be overcome by extending the bill, demanding that all sorts of financial execs return bonuses. That I don’t think Obama would object to. In fact, he expressed desire for this today.

gekkobear on March 23, 2009 at 7:39 PM

They had plenty of time to show for it, and all they do is evade accountability and responsibility – as business has managed to do for the last 30+ years.

Sen. Dodd’s wife was a director of an AIG subsidiary