This is absolutely disgusting. Any such contractual obligations should be broken. The company should be fully nationalized and the people who brought it to its knees, along with the economy as a whole, by manufacturing derivative contracts and obligations that the company lacked the capital to meet, should be put in jail. In fact, I would recommend a show trial of sorts in the name of public catharsis. These people should be stripped of their titles and wealth and punished for their reckless behavior. Who cares about contractual obligations? They trampled the spirit of the law. When you are too big to fail, as AIG obviously is, then you have to abide by a standard of behavior that is far above the one that was followed by its executives. People are angry, and AIG is making a BIG mistake by lavishly rewarding its executives.
If the best that Obama can do is to trot out Larry Summers and Bennie Bernanke on 60 minutes this evening, then Mr. President, you will be a one term wonder. Change we can believe in?!?!? Seems the more things change, the more the corrupt take advantage of we the US taxpayers. The “let them eat cake” crowd has had it. Mr. President, you say we’re all going to have to sacrifice. So far I only see this happening to the tax payer many who now are setting up tent cities while the fat cats live on their caviar driven bonuses. Enough is enough!

Do you think Geitner would be interested in some bridge properties?

Google Docs says “Sorry – Unable to retrieve document for viewing.” Both the letter and the white paper.

I’d read Summers, stating T can’t abrogate bonus contracts. Maybe not, but for $450 mil., they sure can make the parties meet the obligations!

Try going through the links in Janes piece and see if they work better.

or it may be too much traffic to them. I don’t know what the max traffic capability is for google docs.

refresh, they are PDF docs

From Tryggth in the previous thread

tryggth March 15th, 2009 at 10:24 am 39
More on this this… ain’t the toobz wonderful?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..refer=home

it seems Bloomberg news is calling bullshit too

Presumably, financial performance in 2009 will be significantly below that of ‘08, hence less need to pay “bonuses”. That’s either an empty promise costing nothing, or a shot across the bow.

It also highlights what’s been true for some time. “Bonuses” aren’t really bonuses; they are meant to be paid, period. They are characterized as contingent to ward off shareholders’ ire, to make it appear as if absurd levels of compensation are only the natural consequence of achieving absurd levels of performance. Not. It’s a simple expression of “Because I can.”

If financial performance targers aren’t met, managers change targets, or plead unforeseeable circumstances. Most of all, one hears the refrain, like a Gregorian chant, that the company needs to pay them lest it lose the only twenty guys in the world who can run our company as well as our twenty guys. That’s a conveniently self-referential standard meant to guarantee payment (but not a well-managed company or fairly compensated management team).

This also highlights a parallel we see in government. Governments, Obama included, increasingly govern for the Beltway, not those who elect them or whose tax dollars pay for their whims. So, too, companies are not managed in the interests of their fabled shareholder/investors or even their boards of directors. Nor are they managed in the interests of their managers, let alone the rank and file who do most of the work.

They are managed by and for their top execs. The ones whose survive restructurings and relocations, who survive the divorce of companies from the people and places in which they operate. The ones who hold the dozen or more jobs that won’t go to India or China. (Well, except maybe for GM and the rest of Big Auto.)

Wall Street and the Beltway are neighbors; Obama and Summers and Geithner are expressing solidarity with their peers. And telling the fired newspaper and letter carriers, the milk man, the gardener and the local shops that they’ll have to make do with less.

Some time ago, masaccio pointed out that the US government out to declare CDOs null and void. That would automatically mean, “Tough shit, assholes. You gambled, you lost.”

Not exactly a first in human history, so why hasn’t the government done so?

I’d also note that I have yet to see an article on the curious coincidence that the London Oil Spec market was probably located in close proximity to the London AIG creators of CDOs and CDS’s. Purely coincidence? Or not?

An additional coincidence, which I have yet to see anyone explain, is the huge speculation of oil spring/ summer 2008 (based on London) — was any of that oil spec money used to buy up AIG credit derivative products? In what space of time? To what extent? Because the short time frames between the London oil spec frenzy and the AIG meltdown is certainly interesting.

As for AIG, there’s another layer that got a bit of scratching at last week’s House Subcommittee Hearing on Mark-to-Market Accounting. How much of the M2M accounting is skewing the balance sheets of otherwise solid banks and companies? And how do the derivative products play into that M2M accounting procedure mess?

I have no answers.
But curiosity, I got in spades.

I just clicked that link and was told the article is ‘not there’. Anyone else?

(Cue up the Twilight Zone theme music…)

Are you talking about Bloomberg? I got thru…

If Bloomberg, try this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..7HigWEZYgA

Who has inflicted more direct economic damage to the United States, AIG or al Quaeda?
Because it would be irresponsible not to ask.

Who has inflicted more direct economic damage to the United States, AIG or al Quaeda?
Because it would be irresponsible not to ask.

I agree. These are financial terrorists and this is what we should call them.

Smack!

That left a mark

From the Bloomberg article:

The insurer requires recipients to keep the payments confidential, according to a contract obtained by Bloomberg News. Exceptions included financial and legal advisers, as well as immediate family. If awardees tell other outsiders about the existence of the program, they will forfeit future payments, the contract says.

“All of our efforts with respect to our retention program have been made in the light of day,” Liddy said in the Dec. 5 letter to Cummings, who serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Anyone see a contradiction here?

Any contract these employees had was with the previous organization, AIG, and can be broken by the new owner, USA. If Geithner isn’t man enough to stand up to this bullshit, he’s not the Treasury Secretary we ordered. Let’s return him for defective reasoning.

Every freakin word out of AIG on this bous issue contains internal contradicitons–hence the title of my post, ahem “forked tongue”

This is actually pretty funny, or would be, if it weren’t so expensive

Geithner is one of them, no? I’m not even sure they can see us if we stand in front of them.

I think this is tearing it with me and the Obama Administration.

I read Bmaz remarks at Emptywheel calling for a simple Congressional subpoena of the famous unbreakable contracts. A VERY good suggestion. Then in the afternoon I read Obama’s boys echoing AIG’s company line:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..75056.html

Obama’s Summers and Geithner are tools of the banks and the status quo.

We know where Obama is going on this. And we know he is fulfilling the worst prophecies of Roubini and Krugman.

Obama is a follower, not a leader.

And someone here posted a link to Deep Capture (yesterday)–

http://www.deepcapture.com/dee…..planation/

which I also read . I think Jon Stewart did the nation a service by tearing up Mr. Cramer, but he might not have known who he was playing with. If you have some time, you should read the links at this site. Seems Mr. Cramer isn’t quite the buffoon he appears. He is buffoon with “juice”.

However- seems like no one including the government and all the bloviators have no problem trashing a collective bargaining CONTRACT when they deem necessary to save money on the backs of workers.

Funny how that works. So what if AIG doesn’t honor the so called contract? Think AIG folks are going to sue them? or quit? uh–doubtful.

What angers me most about the AIG contracts business—if your favorite airline or furniture factory or car company enters bankrupcy, it’s perfectly okay to break all the labor contracts, the pension obligations, the health care agreements—it’s all perfectly okay. The best laborers in the business are attracted to a company and they are utterly dispensible. But Wall Street is an exception? They are too important to tinker with their contracts?

There is a double standard alright. It is a class difference. And it rightly should be a class battle.

that’d be fork-ed tongue … no money for bogus bonus’s …

A I G stands for Avarice Insolence Graft

Excellent point!