Wednesday, March 18, 2009

OMG WTF AIG

A.I.G. Chief Asks Bonus Recipients to Give Back Half

Ever gotten a "bonus" at your job? Maybe it was enough to to cover a down payment on a new car or pay off a credit card. Did it feel good to be rewarded for your efforts? Maybe your department or even whole company had an "off year" but you performed well and were encouraged to work harder because of it.

When I heard about the A.I.G. bonuses, I wanted to believe that most of the $165M in bonuses were to folks like you or me. Hard-working middle-class people who got a little extra in these hard economic times. Yeah...not so much.
Of the 418 employees who received bonuses, 298 got more than $100,000, according to the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo. The highest bonus was $6.4 million, and 6 other employees received more than $4 million. Fifteen other people received bonuses of more than $2 million and 51 received $1 million to $2 million.
It baffles me. It knocks the wind out of me. It was shocking that the company gave out bonuses. Harder still to believe that these "bonuses" were clearly not tied to actual performance, but instead contractual. And still, none of that bothered me, angered me, as much as the actual per-person pay outs.

How is this shit not criminal?

I don't have a problem with people being rich. But good grief.

I could go on, at length, with an even more curse-laden diatribe but you get the idea...

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