Nationalizing Risk, Privatizing Wealth

March 23, 2009 /

The whole AIG thing is bugging, you know?  I know that it’s important to retain your top talent when you’re a huge company with fingers in every pie in the U.S., such as AIG is.  I do understand that.  If they should fail even worse than they already have, we’re all screwed even farther than we already are.  But it pisses me off that anyone in the WORLD thinks they’re worth this much money, let alone taxpayer money.  No one is worth this much.  No one.  But people who took huge chances that resulted in the collapse of our economy, resulting in this huge loss of jobs, why should they get huge retention bonuses?  Part of me, the knee jerk part, says, they should get a swift kick in the ass.  That’s it.  At very least, these fat cats should refuse the bonuses they agreed to last year.  I know it’s no fun to work at AIG right now.  I know there’s a lot of pressure, and life sucks.  Wah.  Suck it up, asshat.  You want to make a big bonus?  How about you get it AFTER you’ve paid back the U.S. taxpayers AND made us a bit of profit as well.  In a long term, sustainable way, not a short term, digging us in deeper way, K?

AND, I’m tired of hearing about politicians who don’t pay their taxes.  Hell, if they’re Republican, at least they’re consistent with their ideals, right?  “We’re anti-tax, so we’re not paying”.  But if they’re Democrat, they supposedly feel that paying taxes contributes to the greater good, so it’s painful and sucks, but it’s the right thing to do.  Um, not so much, apparently.  Again and again and again, I hear of politicians not paying their stupid taxes.  I know, at some level, that this is a witch hunt.  People, esp. Republicans, are currently LOOKING for problems.  But hell, people, hubris, OK?  Pride goeth before a fall?  Don’t give the other side fodder.  Damn.

</rant>

12 Comments

  • Molly

    March 23, 2009 at 6:14 am

    This whole thing makes me so sick I can barely think about it. The bonuses being paid AND the govb’ment thinking its OK for them to write a law taxing 90% of it, that sets an icky precedent too.

    My son said, if this keeps on, where are we gonna go live mama? This isn’t the country I was born in…HE IS 14. (smart kid)

    I don’t think it is fair to say that a republican would be consistent with the idea of not paying taxes since they are anti tax, they are not anti law. It seriously pisses me off that if I DIDN’T pay my taxes I would be penalized to the max and tossed in the pokey…so why aren’t they? It is all over the news, it isn’t like we can’t find them HELLO, they are on Camera #3!

    Maybe pooling money and buying a small island isn’t such a bad gig

  • Rain

    March 23, 2009 at 6:24 am

    On AIG, some of them didn’t even stay; so the retention bonus sounds more like a payoff of some sort. And maybe it was. On the taxes, I do think they can get confusing when you are self-employed. ‘This is taxed. That is not.’ In one case the guy had been contesting the amount. But since that was Geithner and for other reasons (like collusion) I wish he hadn’t been confirmed as Treasury, too bad it wasn’t a reason to reject him.

  • J

    March 23, 2009 at 8:39 am

    Molly, no, it’s not fair to say that Republicans are law breakers. I was kind of joking, because they’re the ones who always want to cut taxes, and Democrats always want to raise them, so it just SEEMS to make more sense that R’s wouldn’t pay. But I was just kidding about that. 🙂 How much to buy in on that island?

    Rain, I agree that the taxes for these people are above and beyond the normal, and can get confusing. But if you’re on the public dime, and you’re in the public eye, I think you have more than the average responsibility to make sure your taxes are correct.

    The solution, I think, is to seriously simplify the tax code. Just get rid of all the deductions, adjust the tables, and be done with it. You make x? You pay y. End of story. Can’t you hear all of the accountants screaming at me right now?

  • Donna

    March 23, 2009 at 9:37 am

    I agree about the bonuses… PROVE to us all that you are worth all that money by turning things around and paying back all that money and thensome. THEN you can have your big bonus. That’s how it works with all the rest of us, why not them too?

  • Starshine

    March 23, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    It does seem odd to pay bonuses to anyone who works for a company that hasn’t turned a profit or performed well. Isn’t the idea of a bonus that when the company performs well and earns a big profit, part of the profit is shared as a bonus to the employees?

    All of this is very weird territory, and unchartered waters, too. The idea that tax payers are now share holders in companies is rather unprecedented, no? I wonder if any of us will ever be paid back?

  • Irish Jewelry

    March 23, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    Unfortunately, AIG is not alone or unique here. Plenty of companies pay absurd bonuses for less than stellar company performance. I seem to recall reading somewhere the percentage increase in CEO vs. worker bee pay over the last 20 years. The difference was absurd (though I can’t recall what it was).

    If these bonuses were for retention, then they should have been better structured to achieve their aim. Then again, should those same people even remain? However, I really feel that a lot of rights should have been given up once they accepted tax dollars. Bonuses are one of those forfeits.

  • Jimmy

    March 24, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    I haven’t even been able to listen to the radio talk shows like I used too because this stuff eats at me so bad! Of course you wouldn’t approve of my talk show host anyway so I won’t mention their names!LOL
    I can only pray that one day they will seriously consider the “Fair Tax” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

    Hope you are having some luck with employment!

  • Laluna

    March 24, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    Oh geese, what politicians get away with. I just read an article on that and my eyes are still bugged out.

  • OmbudsBen

    March 25, 2009 at 11:50 am

    A coworker relayed to me what a NY financial-type said to him about the bonuses.

    1st, a note: I don’t buy this, but am offering it as this person’s version of ‘the untold story.’

    Many of these bonused people had compensation packages structured, for tax reasons, with low salaries. They worked longer hours, etc., for that reward more so than regular salary.

    I still think it’s obscene, but his take on it was that it’s like working overtime and then, if the bonus is not paid, not getting compensated for the OT you worked.

    Again, I’d be ok with that. Because frankly, the rationale for “risk-takers” is big rewards if you win, none if you lose — so they took the risk and shouldn’t still get the reward.

    I’ts also bemusing to note the auto companies who demand unions re-negoiate workers’ contracts due to the depres- recession, while AIG rationalizes paying these bonuses because they were in contracts.

    • J

      March 25, 2009 at 12:13 pm

      Ben, I’ve been listening to “Planet Money” online…they have some pretty interesting conversations going on about why this money does need to be paid (because they are contracts, and the last thing we want with our financial markets in the turmoil that they are now in is for our laws to start falling apart), why Obama shouldn’t spend his time being ‘outraged’ (because he has much bigger fish to fry, NOW, and shouldn’t be wasting time on playing “I’m more outraged than you are”, which just encourages the Congress to get more outraged and waste more of THEIR time, etc.), how little the amount really is, compared to the earmarks in the budget, or even compared to the amount we’re giving AIG to begin with, and so on. I like that show a lot. But I’m still mad about it. Makes me sick that it all comes down to, “they’re all greedy bastards and we should have known that about them to begin with”, like the old fable of the scorpion riding across the river on the frog’s back. Ugh.