AIG - After It's Gone ...

You can't be trying to take it back. This of course is in reference to AIG and all the "outrage" about bonuses people their are owed. I think a majority of the people in this country would want money they are owed. If you take a job or remain at a job because of a contractual agreement to be paid some amount of money you would expect that money to be paid if you meet your obligation. Many of the bonus' at AIG are retention bonuses. These are given if you remain at a company over an agreed upon time period. This bonus has nothing to do with performance. Whether you agree with this practice or not doesn't matter. They are given in hopes that critical people remain in difficult times or in transition. If their performance is not up to par during this period then fire their ass. If you don't, pay them what they are due. The money they are owed should be part of that company's operating cost. Why Americans are mad at these people for getting what they are due is beyond me. Most of us would want ours. I know I would and America's anger wouldn't make me lose one bit of sleep.

Any anger that is there should be directed towards Congress. Yet they are managing to turn this around on the executives and AIG. They (Congress) rushed the bill that gave them the money with the stipulation in it which says the bonuses can be paid from those funds. It has also been shown that many of those in the administration and congress are former employees of companies that have received bailout money and have friends who probably are getting these bonuses. Geithner was the head of the NY Federal Reserve which gave the first bail out money. They were informed (depending on who you believe). Yet he didn't know? OooooK. Then he says he didn't know until the 10th of March, but there is footage of someone directly asking him about said bonus' at least a week in advance. He is a liar. Most of them are. Our treasury secretary doesn't even want to pay his own taxes. Or he made a mistake. But surely that would make him unqualified to be over the treasury right? How he got the job and still has it at this point seem questionable. Hope he is as valuable as they say. I will continue to pray for him to make good decisions for this country. Anyways, both parties have received millions in contributions from these companies and AIG in particular. None of this strikes us as odd?

But it is taxpayer money. Okay, renegotiate with those people about their money. Don't just tell them they can't have it. And if it is about waste, let us look at Congress and how much they blow with pointless trips and meals. Before Obama first spoke to Congress some of them waited in excess of 8 hours to get good seats. That is good spending of our money though. These people are funny. Taking this as a chance to grand stand and point fingers.

How about we just gut congress and start fresh? This all goes back to Congress and the administration making a mistake in the first place. Own up to it. If any normal person lends someone money and they don't spend it how they thought it would be spent you can't just tell them they can't do that. The money is gone at that point. But no, we are going to let government do whatever they want. Forget the sanctity of a contract as a legal document. We are the government, we do what we want. No one sees this as a problem? But hey, they rushed TARP through and the second stimulus bill. See what that is getting us? Surely there will be more stories of money going places citizens wouldn't want it. We already see companies AIG owed double dipping because they got money directly from the bailout and now indirectly from debt owed to them from AIG. I guess the best solution is to rush something else through congress to fix their mistake because rushing has worked so well in the past. They use fear and anger marvelously. Already these huge bills are just becoming common and we are desensitized to the amounts. It is just like, "oh, they are spending another trillion. Okay."

Fortunately today I heard something from our president along the lines of let us not pass something in haste because of anger. I am writing this post out of anger/frustration. Frustration because people think it is okay to say someone can't have something they are contractually obligated to receive. I don't care who gave the money. They are owed that money. And then for that money to amount to such a small percentage of the total given (.001%). Whether or not these people get their money won't cause them to recover faster or slower. It just looks good to not let them have and makes those of us who are struggling feel better.

The government felt/feels compelled to bail out AIG. Part of that includes money owed to employees just the same as money owed to other companies AIG is in debt to. They didn't want to pay that then they should have stipulated that money could not go there or not bail them out. But we have to bail them out? Really? Are they sure? Do they really understand how all this works? They don't have time to understand the damn legislation they write themselves.