Nestor, that is about a opaque and long winded as a comment can be. Try writing one sentence, in plain English, rather than filibuster the blog.

For example, the Koran says the penalty for theft is to lose a hand.

Condew, completely agree with both your points and especially like the Koran approach. I'd be more than willing to hone some of our kitchen knives for an hand cutting event in the AIG board room ;-).

It doesn't even mention AIG. Furthermore the problems at AIG are not something Socrates or Plato would delve into. It is much more superficial than that.

AIG is the mechanism thru which the American taxpayer will bail out the world's banking system. Read the other articles, much of the money is going to French and German banks. I also read that AIG was founded with Chinese money. That's why they say it can't be alowed to fail.

blah blah blah nestor! what's the matter, no one ever talk to you?

Nestor, Wall Street hussled those people back in the 1930's just like they did it to us again. All with the help of Bill Clinton. Sure like to know what kind of kick backs he got off the deal. I knew this burger was involved. He is not an honorable person. Gosh! Anybody could look at this stuff and tell you it was a house of cards. Bill Clinton built us a false economy.

Thanks for putting our economy in the tank Bill Clinton. Did you do this to America to get revenge for getting put on camera with Monica. Bet you did.

What to do, what to do? You MUST be joking. This is far too easy for someone of my talents. Unlike ANYONE in government, I have common sense. And common sense dictates that the only way ANY of these companies are going to learn a lesson is to let them fail. Get rid of the people who started this mess...and if that means members of Congress, too well then, so be it. I think a full investigation should be underway as to the names of ALL parties involved, government and non-government officials, what their involvement was, etc., and charges be levied. Personally I'm not against a good public flogging, either (tongue-in-cheek)! BTW, it sounds as if someone has swallowed a thesaurus.

?huh? (responding to Nestor)

You really think they are going to investicate themselves? ha ha ha!

Force AIG into a Bankruptcy, origination. The bankruptcy court can then rewrite the management contracts. AIG is playing a game of chicken with the Treasury, saying I dare you, Get the wimps at Treasury to stand up for America. (although most never served in the armed forces, they probably don't have the guts to fight , let alone take a stand)

Shame on you Nestor! When you quote (I mean plagiarize) someone as famous as Paramahansa Yogananda, you need to cite your reference. I've read your previous posts and you are not that articulate and obviously, not that intelligent. Shame on you!

Where would they Executives have gotten their bonuses had the American taxpayers not been duped into providing it for them??

Superb and too informational and instructional to be shortened! Bravo! Bravissimo!

For something called the Newsvine English is the first and only language for content. I would prefer Latin but that encourges soliquoys just like your post.

I think everybody is blaming the wrong people. The people that lent them the money (congress) did it in haste. Everybody is assuming that contracts that were in tact before the bailout should suddenly dissolve, out of common sense. The bottom line is, the government bodies that lent the money should have known all the contracts that where in tact in the entity they lent the money too, before lending the money. We blame business people for not doing their job right, how about the saps that are dishing out this money without any research. They are the ones committing the real crimes. The are like kids in a candy store. A contract is a contract. Like it or not! Our government did not do their due diligence! Why aren't people in uproar about that.

This is mostly directed toward "DaughterRevWar's" comment.........

I'm sick of hearing all of these conservatives screaming "Bill Clinton did this to us". I'm not saying this is completely untrue, but c'mon for years we have been hearing that the housing bubble will burst, and this will lead to a collapse of our economy & the Bush Administration did absolutely nothing to change or stop how these financial institutions were conducting business. During those 8 disastrous years the needs of the common man went painfully ignored. Now that the s--- has officially hit the fan, the common man, now known as "the working poor" is asked to foot the bill. Why are we losing our jobs, pensions & 401k's while the culprits (scam artists) are allowed to receive taxpayer funded bonuses, getaways, etc.. We seem to be giving up everything and the resposible parties go unpunished. I don't care what was written into contracts a year and a half ago (coincidently that was the beginning of this recession), or whatever they claim is their reasoning. Employees of a failed company should NOT receive any compensation, period, especially with taxpayer (my) money. These people know how the economy works. They knew how risky these loans were but their greed and selfishness now have put my job and home in a very unstable position, thanks guys. You guys need to man up and return any compensation received from the victims they have already devistated.

To sum this whole thing up the wealthy treat & think of us as nothing more than dog crap they scrape from their shoes.

you need to get your head out of your arse. slick willy sold us out long before bush went into the white house. just happen that all the manure hit the fan on bush's watch so he is the blame-my a$$. screw you liberals.

Nestor, Wall Street hussled those people back in the 1930's just like they did it to us again. All with the help of Bill Clinton. Sure like to know what kind of kick backs he got off the deal. I knew this burger was involved. He is not an honorable person. Gosh! Anybody could look at this stuff and tell you it was a house of cards. Bill Clinton built us a false economy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I'm assuming this was meant as a joke...Bill Clinton left office with a surplus and Geo spent it ALL in less than one year...you know, the guy who let America get hit by terrorists because he (Geo) was on vacation at his ranch. By the way, just in case you were serious, where have you been for the last 8 years?

Amazing, real estate appraisers who tried to stop this mess had contracts voided and were fired and blackballed by the lenders and Congress, yet they all receive large salaries and bonuses for their actions in wrecking the entire global economy.

Where's the bailout for the ones who warned about and tried to stop this over the past 15 years?

http://efinancedirectory.com/articles/This_is_Why_I_Rent%3A_Median_Incomes_Do_Not_Support_Median_Home_Prices.html

just what drove the realty market to the level it obtained?

Nestor - I have no idea what you just said.

Hello everyone - this line about these bonuses being contractual IS BOGUS. AIG defaulted on its employment contracts. When a contract is in default, there is an action at law if initiated. As these were employment contracts, most likely the action would occur in an arbitration setting - meaning no lawyers are required.

NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is doing the right thing. He's the only government person who is demanding information. He is trying to pull that $165 million back. We Americans paid for it and none of us agree to give it to a bunch of losers who helped ruin our economy.

Stop whining on a message board and write to the people that matter. For the past few days, I've written to every government official with my opinion which is NO BONUSES FOR SHODDY PERFORMANCE - especially when it's tax dollars paying them.

Everybody from one side or the other can go back & forth saying it was Bush (I or II) or Clinton, or Regan, or enven Obama (in less than 2 months). This congress or that congress, this party, that party, blah blah blah that allowed them to do this. It's that last part that I see as the problem. They were not "allowed to", told to, etc... but these companies did this, it is not the people that "let them" rip off the country, they did it flat out. Why weren't they stoped, why didn't someone take the drunks keys, does NOT relieve the person/company of responsibility or the drunk from killing someone. Stop blaming the beer maker, car maker, bar, bartender, etc... Arrest the drunk for the killing, take their freedom, take their money, take their liscense to drive, and put them behind bars.

Seriously???

Get a life; go write a book or something! This money belongs to all of us, many who work too hard & are too angry & strapped to sit back & philosophize.

All but one division of AIG made money. So what executives got bonuses? We at this time don't know. We don't know if the excutives that lost money in the finacial management division are even still working with AIG.

Lets tax all these excutives that got bonuses so that they leave AIG and go to other companies. So lets do all we can so that we the tax payers lose all of the money that was invested for us.

Way too many of you folks aren't thinking this through. Bonuses are paid to exectives who exceed their goal. These bonus monies were part of their LAST YEARS salary pakage. Our Representatives in Washingto attached billions becasue they said it was last years unfinished business.

The amount that was paid as bonuses was less that -7 tenths of a percent of the total money that was given them.

By the way Christ Dodd, Masxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank were warned several times over the last three years by the STUPID President Bush that this mess was right around the cornor. Their response was that the president didn't want poor people to have a piece of the American Dream. The press sided with the Democrat leasdership and now we are reaping what we have sown.

When you don't have enough money to pay anything down, when your work records aren't checked, when your loan is sold to a Qusi Govement agancy, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, one should be able to see the handwrotting on the wall.

Wall Street got caught up in the never falling house value as have our local goverments. So Wall Street bet on those loans gaining value. Local Goverments gave pay increases, bought new equipment, built new offices all of which arfe going to have to be paid for. So as the price of your house falls the mill levy will be raised to cover the increased cost of local goverments doing business. So the other shoe is about to fall.

Threepines, I agree with you on the bonus' workings and that many AIG divisions made money. That said, you need to remember that AIG had to borrow money from the Feds to stay in business. Had that not happened, AIG would have gone into bankruptcy and or gone out of business and resulting in no bonuses and/or lost jobs.

AIG as a whole needs to suffer and be held accountable for their poor management. Let internal AIG peer pressure run the poor execs/manages out of AIG. I liken it to an individual who has an broken leg. While the balance of the body is fine, it simply cannot ignore its broken leg and continue 'business as usual'.

Their UK division that sold the 'toxic' assets, heavily contributing to this global financial SNAFU, is the division getting the biggest bonuses.

Make sense to anybody?

Cheng: Dang it man !! That's the best darn solution posted in here yet! Makes GOOD sense. (So, I guess they won't do it.)

Cheng - (post 2.4) this would be considered arbitrary and capricious and it's against the law. Two wrongs do not make a right.

If you watched MSNBC or CNBC this morning, you heard about how (unfortunately), they need these AIG clowns around to unwind the complicated derivative deals they put together. So as distasteful as it is, those executives need to stay there -- for now (burn them at the stake later, if you still feel that strongly about it). If you think it's as simple as hiring an auditing team to take over and unwind it, you've never been audited by regulators or accountants -- they have to rely, at least partially, on staff and management to lead them through their processes. Besides, if they were super smart they'd be making decent money somewhere else. Yes, it sucks, but it's the reality we're stuck with.

WorkingMom

re: your post 2.6 - I've had the work experience of having a computer programmer die and he never wrote down the code. We had to figure out what he did so that we could finish the massive accounting program to track all our money so that we could issue financial reports.

We figured it out. So can AIG and the government auditors. We frankly do not need to retain any fool who got us into this mess in the first place.

President franklin Roosevelt did that in the 1929 Depression what he got for his trouble was a World Wide Depression that lasted for many years longer than most experts say it would have if he hadn't tried to interfer with the economy.

The best answer is if another infusion of my grandchildrfen's tax dollars is to be spent, is that they give all Americans with valid indentification 3 - 6 months of releif on their income taxes. We could decide if who the winners and losers were.

Damn straight, make an example out of them!

But I won't be holding my breath considering AIG insures the pension trust of the United States Congress...

And there lies the "rub" . . . the Congressional Pension Fund is insured by AIG. You really think Congress is going to let the company insuring their fat retirements go bankrupt? Your fooling yourselves! Congress will continue to spew venom at AIG, but will do nothing about the bonuses. Don't be surprised when AIG announces another set of bonuses after it gets its next government subsidy. Welcome to American politics!

Mhatt1, if what you say is true about AIG insuring the pension of the US Congress, that makes everything else clear. If you're only partial to AIG and bail them out it would reek , so to cover this smell and not seem impartial to other failing companies, you have to bail out everything and everyone else. It's like covering up a lie to cover up a lie and it never stops until the bottom falls out. What an elevator fall this is going to be.

I'm still looking for the program to bail out my 401k loses.

The common thread in every bailout so far is that whatever savings or equity you lost, nobody cares. But we will bail out the people who caused the loss, we will adjust your mortgage just enough to keep you a slave to it. But if you want your 401k back, put it back in the stock market when you think it has bottomed out; bet it on black and spin the wheel one more time.

If a kid steals your car, he's going to prison and his life is ruined. If a wall street banker steals the equivalent of a whole fleet of cars, we won't prosecute; in fact we'll use your taxes to give him a bonus.

I can only hope these guys also cheated some group like drug dealers or the Russian mafia. I'd like to start reading about a series of Wall street bankers found headless in the East river.

Mhatt1 and RC, that is NOT true. AIG does NOT take care of the congressional pension funds. That is a rumor and false one at that. Please quit with the false rumors. Check factcheck.org.

The reason congress won't let them fail is because they are too intertwined in the world economy and could cause greater damage if they fail. Well, ok fine. But put strong regulations on how the money is spent!! That's where all the problems are...no regulation on how our tax dollars are spent. It's too late once the cow is out of the barn!

Condew -

I'm with you on this one. I still say the best way to keep the greedy SOB's from taking taxpayer dollars for their bonuses that they evidently DID NOT EARN would be to for the government to not have given it. The AIG heads have already admitted that even this latest cash influx of $67 or so BILLION won't fix their problem. So why is the government throwing good money after bad? They will never learn! They are whining that they just have to pay the bum execs cause it was in their contracts. Well, why did you make up and agree to a STUPID contract like that? It should be performance based. You don't perform and company is in the hole - you are in there with them. Bad job - no bonus, especially with "Borrowed" money.

Well said!

azmom,

But who would hire them after looking at their resume ?

If these are really the people that caused the mess WHY the hell are they still working there let alone getting a bonus, good golly, just how out of touch are these coporations and elected officals with the rest of humanity?

FIRE THEM! NOW

I agree totally! No one in government is coming in to rescue small businesses who have dealt legitimately, but who have unfortunately had to close b/c of the economy. These execs are greedy and obviously don't care about the state of our economy or they would give up bonuses, as most Americans right now would give up pay raises if it meant keeping a job. I also don't think we as taxpayers should be bailing out people who are in foreclosure b/c they took out more loan than they can afford with interest only and arms loans. Let them learn from their mistake.

Taxpayers now own 80% of AIG. Why would you want it to fail? I sure don't.

Instead, get rid of these execs who created the mess. Wall St. has plenty of unemployed financial types that would probably be happy for a job at half the salary + health insurance.

There are plenty of people who would take these jobs and not demand bonuses for failed work! If they want to give bonuses, fine. But give back the 170 billion first. Then they can give bonuses for all the hard work!

River View:

Come on! "Taxpayers now own 80% of AIG" Don't think so! You are no more a shareholder of AIG than I am and neither of us will be getting our Bonus checks anytime soon.

Jail time for what? They didn't break any laws. I think it was slimy of them to give the bonuses, but you really can't start creating rules and applying them retroactively, that is a dangerous precedent. The bailout stipulated limitations on the bonus, but that was only for companies that get bailouts from the stimulus package, which was after the AIG bailout.

Honestly, blame your congressman for not putting more strings on the bailout money, not the people who were the beneficiaries of it.

I'm starting to wonder if this bail out is actually hush money from the government to cover up for the likes of Barney Frank and Sen Dodd strong arming the banks into giving out all these loans to people who could of never afforded to pay them back in the first place.!

JohnFx: blame the Fed, they screwed this up before they ever consulted congress. Blame the Ex President who appointed the people who screwed this up. Or blame the Ex President who ignored this problem because he didn't believe in regulation. For Republicans, business should be allowed to make money, and if it is by lying, cheating, and stealing, the victims deserved it. Republicans only care that there are rich people around to fund their next campaign.

I guess you did not read the article. All this mess was initiated by Clinton and the Congress. Bush inherited it and tried to get the Congress to rectify it and failed. This is his failure. Did Obama say anything about this issue for the last 4 years he was in the Senate? Do you think he has any idea what to do now? This compensation issue is a red herring, a small amount (less than 1%) to get people's attention away from the billions given to AIG and other companies with no Federal control.

Oh really Condew? Well go onto Bloomberg.com...there's an article in there that reads "Obama to Test Fundraising Skills Amid 'Donor Fatigue' Crisis". Obama's already trying to fund his next campaign. Only Republicans? I think not.

A recent MSNBC article I read shows what is happening with ethics (business and social) in our world.

"Other findings from the survey:

• Cheating in school is rampant and getting worse. Sixty-four percent of students cheated on a test in the past year and 38 percent did so two or more times, up from 60 percent and 35 percent in a 2006 survey.
• Thirty-six percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up from 33 percent in 2004.
• Forty-two percent said they sometimes lie to save money — 49 percent of the boys and 36 percent of the girls."

". . . . 93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 percent affirmed that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.""

The scary thing about the article is that kids openly admit to cheating, but 93% don't feel remorse or guilt for their actions. The article continues on to say that most kids that cheat in school will most often cheat in business. I wonder how many of these "genius'" cheated their way throught high school and college? What concerns me as an educator is that if a kid is caught cheating, their is hardly, if ever, a punishment (usually a slap on the wrist and a "please don't do it again."). Is it any wonder we are seeing the lack of morals and ethics in this world today?

And the cheats are the ones most likely to go into finance, I'll bet, because they aren't competant to to do anything like medicine or agriculture or skilled trade where the results of their work are immediately apparent.

Amen.

Terrific idea!

I would have to think that a bonus is for work that benefits the company. I can't think that these executives have benefitted the company.

The current "format" of business and business law in no way resembles the format of not too long ago. The current format is thievery, deception, greed, and abuse with no threat of regulatory consequences. This format needs to be destroyed like a cancer, and the old format - with regulation - restored.

who would be dunb enough to make a bonus contract for these people and not tie to some sort of standard that has to be met? Thses peoples business choices lost the company $61 billion dollars in the fourth quarter alone, and yet they deserve $165 million dollars in bonus? The idiot or idiots may be the board of directors need to be removed. How can you make a contract for future remuneration and not tie it to some sort of performance standard. Totally gross incompetence and we reward it!!! Who is really the stupid ones? Is it us or them? Ask yourself who has the money and is still making big bucks? Let them sue us and just before it is found in their favor if it is Have AIG declare bankruptcy. Best and brightest my ass!! they are only the best at GREED. They run the company into the ground, get a taxpayer bailout and still want their bonuses? let them go without.

A contract is a contract. Very much so. But bonuses can only be paid from money earned - bailout money is not money earned!!! So if the company did not earn any money, sorry - no bonus!!!

Contracts are renegoiated all the time. UAW just did with the Detroit automakers.

Personally, I don't think these execs are worth keeping. I'd start firing 5% of them a week. And have their taxes are audited by IRS. Probably tried to pull a fast one on that, too.

And release the names of those that didn't give back their bonus.

So let me get this strait; we can make auto companies break their contracts with unions to get their bailout, but we can't make AIG break their contract with their labor; even when we own 80% of AIG?

DOUBLE STANDARDS! The UAW vs AIG. One consists of blue collar workers trying to make a living; the other consists of white collar workers who fund the US Congress' pensions. Who do you see winning? The UAW had to renegotiate their contract, why not AIG?

General Motors exec's gave up their bonus' and raises voluntarily, what did AIG do?? RAPED the US taxpayer!

Between the neck-tie head 3 card Monty players cruzin' Wallstreet, prompt screen Politicians feigning ignorance and/or impotence and Truth Challanged Used Camel salesmen, we the working and disabled send money from our hovels and trailers to make payments on what kind plush accommodation?

I'm tired of supporting a life style I will never see, except when I pay for cable.