Hey, anyone know how much the CEO's of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got as bonuses the last few years?

Hmmmmm, wonder if we can get that back too.

TXL

Nabb1: Does calling someone "Bozo" help yours, Clarabell?

I'm pretty sure that on at least two seperate occasions, you've told me that name calling is proof that one has no valid argument to make. Does this also apply to you, or just me?

Also, as I understand it, these bonuses were retention bonuses. You can refuse to pay retention bonuses with no problem. All it means is the employee is then excused from his contract and can go find another job if he likes. I'm pretty sure you can't sue to get a retention bonus.

As people have noted, if they think they can find another job in this economy in financial services, good luck, and more power to them if they are successful. AIG should have been required to call them on it and dare them to take another job. These people obviously weren't that great at their job in the first place if that company tanked worse than any company that wasn't just allowed to fail.

Everyone should get paid the same.

This way you don't get soulless bastards doing things just for money, be they right or wrong.

Work for prestige.

Nabb1: KaponoFor3: Noting that AIG has "received substantial sums" of federal aid from the federal government, Obama said he has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole."

As a lawyer, Obama should know that this is a truly stupid idea. If they don't pay those bonuses that they are contractually obligated to pay, the guys who were to receive them will sue for breach of contract, and then not only will AIG have to pay the bonuses off, but also will have to pay attorney's fees as well... and I guarantee the lawyers for the executives won't be charging $200/hour, try closer to $600/hour.

Seconded. Obama knows this, too, so why he is making such a rash promise he knows he likely will have a difficult time keeping from a legal standpoint is beyond me. There isn't much really recent on the Contracts Clause from the appellate courts of which I am aware, but this is going to lead only to costly vexatious litigation.

why would promising to stop the bonus's be anymore bullshiat than the rest of his promises...lets look at them..shall we

I will get all the troops out of Iraq in 18 months--nope--leaving 50,000 behind--same as Bush's plan.

I will go through the budget line by line and take out all the pork--nope--didn't do that because it was a budget written under the Bush administration..

I will not tax health care coverage provided by employers--(Obama said Mccain wanted to do it--which is a lie in itself since he said he wanted to offer companies tax breaks for supplying health care coverage)--nope--now he's considering it

Obama is a lying sack of shiat that will say ANYTHING to look like he cares..all you farkers that voted for him have doomed America--thank you very much

/Empty barn, close door.

If he can't legally prevent them paying out the money, just take back 2x that amount from the bailout. There are always other avenues.

dj_bigbird
Why is everyone running around freaking out about 1/10 of 1% of the total bailout $ when over half of it went to Goldman-Sachs and a couple of European banks?

Because most Americans don't care about substance, they only care about what looks good.

If these people are to fired for incompetence, Why is Barney Frank still drawing a pay check?

Maybe this will also force the overpaid, greedy buffoons expecting the bonuses to resign, thus saving AIG more money.

KaponoFor3: Obdicut: Would you say that's correct?

Sure, that's correct, but it really doesn't matter. This is all a play for the cameras. He knows there is no legal way to block the payments.

And possibly Wall Street. I wonder if AIG is betting that the admin. will back off on fears of further DJIA drops if this occurs. Perhaps a little mild extortion: "back off of this or risk further financial decline."

Bonuses unlinked to performance and golden parachutes for millionaire executives have been a mainstay of financial institutions for years, if shareholders don't care about that, then maybe they should start doing so.

KaponoFor3: Obdicut: Would you say that's correct?

Sure, that's correct, but it really doesn't matter. This is all a play for the cameras. He knows there is no legal way to block the payments.

Absolutely true. I guess you could say that Obama HOPES to CHANGE the outcome of this situation but the reality dictates otherwise.

GQueue: You know, there is one thing with the "oh, it's contracted, no way to break that then" folks that makes me wonder.

Automakers in trouble: "Hey, just break the union contracts for all the autoworkers, force them to renegotiate"

Financial companies in trouble: "Well, it's in the contract. Oh well. Can't renegotiate that, can't break it either."

If we can basically tell the auto companies and union "renegotiate or die" then why can't we do the same to AIG and the other financial companies? Why don't we threaten to call in the bailout money if they don't cut this crap out? Hard for all these execs to get their bonuses for failing if their company no longer exists. The only difference here is that these executives will be just fine if they lose their job tomorrow and could probably never work again and be fine unless they're completely retarded with money (ok, given how they've run these companies into the ground, maybe they really are that dumb, in which case why are they getting paid millions when any arsehole on the street could do an equivalently lousy job?).

what i came to say

you said it better

The irony is 90 percent of the people posting in this thread probably aren't even worth $1,000, $10,000, or any positive amount of money, yet think they know what's best for the economy.

Attention: The bonuses went to people working in the LONDON branch of AIG. This is the same branch that created 2.7 TRILLION dollars worth of "insurance" known as CDS, which is what the bailout is trying to paper over.

Never mind these things though. There are certainly more important things to know, like who are the UCLA coeds pictured above?

Ditto: I'm for it. 10% of everything I earn doesn't sound as bad as what I seem to dish out now.

Also, it would be to my benefit for AIG to be reduced to rubble and for the worms and rats to get fat off their rotting corpses.

Yea, except for the part where your local governments cant make police and fire dept. payroll and there is no one protecting the city because the city/county had to pay all their AIG-insured bonds immediately, instead of the originally negotiated terms, because the bond insurer went bankrupt.

So except for the stoppage of essential services like fire and police protection, and municipal water and sewer, letting AIG fail is a great farking idea.

Retards

DaShredda: Everyone should get paid the same.

This way you don't get soulless bastards doing things just for money, be they right or wrong.

Work for prestige.

Shut up and keep mopping Shredd

Since we legally own the business, why don't we just show up there and change the way things are done? They have to legally inform the stockholders about whats going on right? So why don't we use that power?

topcon: The irony is 90 percent of the people posting in this thread probably aren't even worth $1,000, $10,000, or any positive amount of money, yet think they know what's best for the economy.

So only people who are worth money are intelligent?

archichris: This is an ugly trend. I cannot remember a president ever directly attacking private people like this.



Approves

PascalsGhost: Obama didn't bailout AIG. Bush did you stupid bastard.

Well, technically, Bush gave the first $85 billion to AIG, but the gov't got 80% of AIG stock in exchange. Bush then cleared $56 billion of bad (at least nominally) debt from AIG's books. Then Obama gave them another $30 billion, cash. So depends on your definition of bailout, but it looks to me like there's plenty o' blame to go around here.

lunchinlewis: I guess you have a contract. I'm not following your point though. I mean, you can have a contract that defines compensation and bonuses and allows for termination at-will. You can also have a contract that states your term of employment will run for 18 months. Having a contract does not by itself determine the at-will status of your employment.

That's his entire point. You guys were making the argument that having a contract nullified the idea of them being able to be fired at any point for any reason.

Obdicut has spent the last 2 hours saying that is an incorrect assumption because you guys don't know what is in the contract.

It's perfectly logical for Obama to see what avenues there are available to achieve what he wants to achieve. It might not do any good and, even if it is fixed, the money is a drop in the bucket compared to all the other burning money piles....but that's not the point.

Socialism is all about rewarding failure.

siromega: because the city/county had to pay all their AIG-insured bonds immediately, instead of the originally negotiated terms, because the bond insurer went bankrupt.

It'll take a while for a bankrupt company to force municipalities to cough up money for a contract that has been cut short due to bankruptcies.

That's like Sprint going out of business tomorrow and trying to charge me $200 for cancelling my contract early.

Lt. Cheese Weasel: Kinda late with this bs. The farking horse is already out of the dam barn genius.

How hard can it be to have some safety and controls BEFORE they get the farking money????? DUH!


/Change is all you have left.


Date of AIG bailout: September 16, 2008

Date of Obama's inauguration: January 20, 2009

Got anything else?

pixistick: Shut up and keep mopping Shredd

If there wasn't somebody picking fruit there wouldn't be space shuttles.

Think about it.

A Mexican picking tomatoes does more for me than someone building airplanes.

theknuckler_33: Bhasayate: Obama is making some funny mistakes, if they weren't so seriously bad mistakes.

You can't make things up as you go at this level. Give a handout without conditions that specify how it is to be used, then this shiat is gonna happen.

Hmm, I seem to remember the AIG bailout taking place prior to the election.

i didn't remember and i just went on 'rant' mode for no good reason, because it seemed like the right thing to do

my post still has truthiness in it goshdurrnit!

/jk

NYZooMan: Socialism is all about rewarding failure.

Well, good thing we don't have the Bush Administration around anymore.

TheSignPost: You have mistaken the concept of "bonus" for the concept of "pay."

Don't worry, everyone's doing it, you're not alone.

At most financial companies employees above a certain level receive the bulk of their yearly pay in the form of bonuses. It's used to reward good work, hard work, and indicate that if you suck at your job you're going to get paid shiat. Entry-level brokers would be paid 48,000 a year while working 12-16 hour days 6 days a week. This high-stress low-pay situation would last for at least five years until promotion. If the company did well that year, they would be paid a bonus of, quite often, between 100-200k. If the company did very poorly, they would still probably get a bonus in the range of 50k. This was, essentially, the best way to create a merit-based pay structure within the framework of federal law.

Now, as to why I'm making the argument the way I am and not, as you think, confusing bonuses with pay: senior executives at companies in times of crisis will make or break the company. Since most financial firms are laying down and dying since what happened was a "global" bad decision instead of decisions made by a few idiots at a few large firms, as many people think, the executives at the companies that are attempting to damage control expect large multi-million dollar bonuses. Is it fair? Not really, but executives at almost every other company get the same thing. If you're in a high-profile position and you fail, it will end your career; and likely the careers of thousands of people who work for you. To stay at a company like AIG in this market is to put your career on the line; so the bonus structure at AIG needs to be competitive in the executive job market, if not exceeding it.

A large part of this is a matter of opinion, but I've yet to hear an argument that doesn't invoke some silly class-war dogma that isn't solution-oriented. The solution is to make sure these executives are kicking ass and make sure they receive compensation commiserate with said ass-kicking.

lol...

They are getting the bonuses and he knows it ... this is just more of Obama being flat-out dishonest attempting to convey one thing while he does another...

For all you libs getting pissed at me just remember this when they get their bonuses and I was right.

adamgreeney: Since we legally own the business, why don't we just show up there and change the way things are done? They have to legally inform the stockholders about whats going on right? So why don't we use that power?

We the people aren't part of we unless we are paying shiatloads of money in taxes. Do you remember when we voted for any of this shiat?

The Why Not Guy: I'm pretty sure that on at least two seperate occasions, you've told me that name calling is proof that one has no valid argument to make. Does this also apply to you, or just me?

That's what I want to know. It seems to be a coordinated effort from 2/3 people to annoy or demean someone that constantly has a differing viewpoint while trying to take a morally superior attitude.

It certainly kneecaps their entire argument for no apparent reason other than to childishly try to make fun of someone.

Nabb1: PascalsGhost: MY point is a very simple one. You lack enough information to make any sort of a legal judgement on the issue.

Perhaps, but I do know how to spell "judgment."

Yes, you showed me.

Most people do. You have no idea what the government's partnership with AIG allows or prohibits. To sugest you have a clue is arrogance.

I do know enough to recognize that overcoming the contractual obligations that were seemingly in place before the bailout happened are Sisyphusian, to say the least. If the contracts provide otherwise, I will happily alter my opinion.

But you know absolutely nothing about the contract these people had. Why do you act as if you did?

Again, this is in no way attacking you as an attorney. You may be the tits. But you don't have a clue what youa re tlaking about here and its just partisan "Obama is lying" bullshiat.

Yes, I am sure it is as you say.

Whatever.

DaShredda: pixistick: Shut up and keep mopping Shredd

If there wasn't somebody picking fruit there wouldn't be space shuttles.

Think about it.

A Mexican picking tomatoes does more for me than someone building airplanes.

It was a joke.

AndEhBus: this is just more of Obama being flat-out dishonest attempting to convey one thing while he does another...

For all you libs getting pissed at me just remember this when they get their bonuses and I was right.

pissed at who...Obama or the person who gave them the bailout?

bulldg4life: It certainly kneecaps their entire argument for no apparent reason other than to childishly try to make fun of someone.

Well, that would be easy for a poopyhead like you to say, wouldn't it?!

(sorry, had to) :D

AndEhBus: For all you libs getting pissed at me just remember this when they get their bonuses and I was right.

When that happens, it'll be because he's not really the president yet.

gallo caldo: PascalsGhost: Obama didn't bailout AIG. Bush did you stupid bastard.

Well, technically, Bush gave the first $85 billion to AIG, but the gov't got 80% of AIG stock in exchange. Bush then cleared $56 billion of bad (at least nominally) debt from AIG's books. Then Obama gave them another $30 billion, cash. So depends on your definition of bailout, but it looks to me like there's plenty o' blame to go around here.

the truthiness is VINDICATED!!!!