That’s not advice for AIG, that’s advice for the government and the overseers of the bail out cash (if there are any).

Fire the lot means fire everyone at the top, including the assholes who plan to pay themselves and their asshole brokers bonuses.

If new people have been hired at AIG and this is their plan, they deserve to be fired, too.

Yeah, if you’re gonna start insisting that executives can be fired for cause, you’re gonna find coal in your stocking. Santa Claus, after all, is an executive, overseeing a large non-union workforce. He’s not gonna see eye-to-eye with you on that at all…

Firing isn’t necessary, just tell them they can keep their job if they’re willing to take a 40% cut in salary, along with no salary increase until three years after the current recession is gone, and the economy recovers to 2006 benchmarks.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dated Saturday, AIG Chairman Edward Liddy said outside lawyers informed AIG that it had contractual obligations to make the payments [for the bonus agreements] and could face lawsuits if it did not do so.

Liddy said the company entered into the bonus agreements in early 2008 before AIG got into severe financial straits and was forced to obtain a government bailout.

AIG has agreed to the Obama administration’s requests to restrain future payments.

This is a load of crap. You can’t enforce an illegal contract. If the members of Congress who were so concerned about this practice would make it illegal–and retroactive to the intitial TARP funding, not only would AIG and others not be handing out bonuses to people who provided piss-poor performance, but we could take restitutionary measures to enforce it–like sending the IRS in to hoover the money out of the offenders’ personal accounts, and hauling off their crap for sale at auction.

No. Fire them. The essence of the value of most of the upper level executives in a company like AIG is being able to predict viable investment strategies across various markets based on mathematical models. The old models aren’t working–and may never work again. And judging from the cushy bonuses they’ve contracted for themselves, they are too insulated financially to have an incentive to learn the next “paradigm.” (God, I hate that word…. It’s so Wharton.) There are a lot of very bright, highly educated younger people who are qualified for this type of work, who would otherwise never get a chance at proving themselves in a company like AIG simply because they didn’t have the wealth and family connections to get into the right schools, etc. that would slot them for a job there. And the executives don’t have the good sense to quit while they’re ahead. Perhaps if the upper management and executives at AIG had to compete with high school and college kids seeking summer employment at McDonald’s and Starbucks, they’d finally grasp the fact that they are not indispensable.

I’d like to see these contracts – what the hell would they have to do to NOT get their performance bonuses?

Damn, misread the title….!

The US gummint now OWNS 80% of the company (I read somewhere) and we can’t fire or “request” a voluntary refusal to accept a bonus?

If these bonuses were written into these executives’ contracts (regardless of performance apparently), why are they called bonuses? Aren’t they just plain old compensation? I thought bonuses were determined after the profits of the company for the year were assessed. I don’t know anyone who knows contractually what the dollar amount of their bonus will be (or if there will even be one). I guess I don’t travel in these rarified circles of executives so important to their companies that even after the most epic failure, why, these executives are indispensable!! They must be paid not to leave.

To add insult to injury, the AIG CEO Mr. Liddy justifies the whole heist by saying that the nature of the insurance business is that we trust them to honor their commitments. Uh, is he effing kidding??

Firing them might lead to lawsuits? Oh, please, throw me in that briarpatch. I think taxpayers everywhere would just LOVE to read the executives’ depositions. I bet the IRS and Justice would, as well. Lawsuits are almost literally the LAST things those asshats want.

You’re right, bonuses are so imbedded in the culture that they consider them regular compensation.

Maybe we could just stop paying them and move their offices to the basement. Worst case scenario one of them goes rogue and burns the building down. I’m sure their insurance would cover that right?

Also – I still want to know when we’re gonna get our damn US flags on the Manchester United jerseys! What good is owning AIG if we don’t get to design the uniforms for the football team we’re sponsoring?

Firing is too good. Make them start cleaning the building, at least they would be doing something productive.

Wow. I read BOOBS, probably because I just finished reading this:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/…..-pill.html

Put the AIG criminals in jail. That ought to take a little wind out of their sails.

Here’s something worthy of sharing….

Jesus in Your Buttcrack
http://thetimchannel.com/?p=398

Enjoy.

Actually it’s worse.

Classic extortion.

Ummm, yeah. And we’re gonna need you AIG dweebs to, uhh, come in on, uhh, Saturday? Yeah.

“what would they have to do NOT to get bonuses” — exactly my thought. I mean this: “the company entered into the bonus agreements in early 2008 before AIG got into severe financial straits and was forced to obtain a government bailout” is utter bullstuff. Those severe financial straits materialized once reality called bullshit on their ponzi scheme, but let’s be clear about the fact that the clowns trying to cash a billion dollar bonus check with our tax dollars were getting AIG into trouble long before things went ugly enough for the rest of the world to notice.

They. Fucked. Up. Big time. So there should be no performance bonus — and if there wasn’t an actual, you know, performance clause in the contract, then it wasn’t a performance bonus but simply a part of their pay. And that can and should be renegotiated when the company is living off the public teat.

can we get Sir Alex Ferguson to wear a US flag lapel pin too?

Fire them? I think we can do better than that.

Or we can always invade Poland.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/15

When senior representatives from AIG, Citi, etc. say things like “We’ll lose these people to the competition!” what they reall mean to say is this:

“Look, we know these guys couldn’t get work parking cars, but this will probably be our last chance to cash in for a decade, so let me see if we can get away with it, if not, no biggie.”

Their bonus is a legal contract that cannot be broken by anyone ever, ever, ever? fine. Pay it out in AIG stock.

Backdated, to the value of AIG stock from back before the collapse that these guys brought on. Seems fair.

Perhaps if the upper management and executives at AIG had to compete with high school and college kids seeking summer employment at McDonald’s and Starbucks, they’d finally grasp the fact that they are not indispensable.

From your lips to Obama’s ears . . . . .

Completely off topic. Eleanor the basset hound could have been Satchmo’s soul mate in appearance? Sadly, she just passed away.

Actually, if AIG technically qualifies as a gubmint agency, it may be able to breach certain types of contracts and still make the other parties honor their end of the deal. Fun things you learn researching case law….

Of course we can always pay the f*ckers, then arrest them for treason, and hang them. Gosh, what a happy thought!

Torch, meet Pitchfork…

Isn’t Manchester the team that has the profane cheers?

The insurers who sponsor Manchester,
let the world economy fester.
They played us for suckers–
the damn motherf*ckers–
expect bonuses for this disaster!

ADD A VERSE

Gah. what’s frightening is in the NYT story explaining why we need to pay the bonuses to keep these people…

… from going to other companies and using their inside knowledge to bet against AIG. apparently, they’re being headhunted pretty fiercely to do just that.

Gah. i hate these people.

Firing them wouldn’t mean you’d be able to stop paying them, if they have contracts. If a coach gets fired, then he still gets paid he’s just no longer coach.