Updated at 8:20 PM
According to this Washington Post article, AIG wants to hand out $250 million in bonuses over the next nine months. The $2.4 million specified below is only for the top 40 executives.
July 10, 2009
The Facts
Next week AIG will hand out another $2.4 million in unearned bonuses to 40 top executives of the company. According to The Washington Post, AIG wants the federal government to give them “political cover” by blessing the payout. They are worried about another public outrage, but they feel with the government protecting them, any new outrage would be minimized, or at the very least, divert the anger away from them.
The Post says the bonuses were delayed from 2008, as if that is supposed to make some sort of difference. Evidently this is an effort by the Post to “soften” the sting; otherwise they would have pointed out that without taxpayer money there would be no AIG to pay out those “delayed” bonuses.
My View
Here’s the real problem — anyone and everyone in a position to do something about this crime is a criminal themselves. And with the main stream news media obviously unopposed to the thefts, they are not going to lead any resistance. Therefore, until we-the-(real)people do something about this insulting travesty, it will continue, even after the so-called “systemic emergency” is over. Nobody voluntarily gives up access to free money, and, if not AIG, it will be some other company cooking their books to “prove” they need taxpayer help.
In October of last year I told you why AIG executives were spending taxpayer money on parties. It was because they knew their demise was imminent. Then in November I asked will AIG go bankrupt in spite of bailout. Finally, in March of this year I wrote Final Curtain Call — Failure Is Near. Now it appears that a professional analyst agrees. According to the same Post article referenced above, the analyst “warned that AIG might be worthless to shareholders if or when it ever pays back the billions it owes the U.S. government”. Citigroup’s Joshua Shanker, went on to say “our valuation includes a 70 percent chance that the equity at AIG is zero”.
AIG’s executives intended from the start to milk as much money as they could out of the taxpayer before they go under. In March I wrote this post about the $170 million dollars in bonuses they were handing out that month from the taxpayer bottomless pit, and I also warned in March, as did others, that another planned extortion was scheduled for this month. Now here we are.
Allowed to get away with this, the banks and all 535 (corrupt) officials in the Capital building will accelerate the next round of abuses. And it’s obvious the White House doesn’t care, so we can lump them in with the hordes of thieves. Therefore, we must accept that those who could do something about it aren’t going to. And sitting on our ass and doing nothing but complain is never going to work, and words of anger, insults and damnation won’t work either. If the latter is all they have to suffer in exchange for millions of free, unearned, pocket-dollars extorted from taxpayers, they are more than willing to accept the humiliation. And that includes the bought-off public officials we elected.
The ONLY thing these people understand is action. So until at least 25 million common citizens march peacefully on Washington, then on to Wall Street, we will not only be ignored but continued to be sheared like sheep.
Groundhog Day in July: AIG Bonuses « Cynical Synapse // Jul 12, 2009 at 8:03 PM
[...] accept this continued perversion of our democracy and diversion of our tax dollars. As posted on the Common People’s Source for News: AIG’s executives intended from the start to milk as much money as they could out of the taxpayer [...]