- #36
Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
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I guess all of that pressure had to vent somewhere...
TheStatutoryApe said:This comment disgusts me more than these bonuses.
[/URL]OmCheeto said:I would suggest you avoid studying world history then. It was full of disgusting little things like that. I just finished reading up on the French revolution. It's amazing what peasants will do when you piss them off.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f5/Guillotine_model_1792.jpg/180px-Guillotine_model_1792.jpg
Phrak said:If people were nonplused would you find something wrong, Statutory?
I've been waiting a good 5 years for the frickin mob to wake up.
BobG said:Personally, I think professionals in the finance industry have been unfairly maligned in the media, which just fuels the fire. Many are quite noble, but the media fails to give them credit for their efforts - http://health.usnews.com/articles/h...-the-economy-down-vasectomy-rates-are-up.html
The article implies these decisions are based solely on selfish economic reasons. Clearly, professionals in the finance industry are beginning to realize their intellectual limitations and are nobly choosing to maintain the integrity of the world's gene pool.
Well, we didn't make that decision. The Obama administration chose to help AIG avoid bankruptcy (which would have gotten them out of their obligation to pay the bonuses). In other words, if by we you mean the gov't, then we told them they had to pay the bonuses.OmCheeto said:By my calculations, we own that company 46 times over. We are therefore the rightful shareholders of the company. If we say they shouldn't get a bonus, then they don't.
And because they did, I now consider it embezzlement. But even if it can't be legally classified as embezzlement, who wrote the contracts which awarded all the bonus's in the first place?
LowlyPion said:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29756163/displaymode/1107/s/2/
Looks like that pretty much expresses the National mood about AIG execs.
I note that MSNBC is now reporting that most of the top bonuses are being returned by AIG execs. Maybe shame works.
We say "on ne fait pas une omelette sans casser des oeufs". Which means "you can not make an omelet without breaking eggs"Astronuc said:I was thinking last night that the situation is beginning to sound like the French Revolution.
humanino said:We say "on ne fait pas une omelette sans casser des oeufs". Which means "you can not make an omelet without breaking eggs"
But during the french revolution, there was one (probably apocryphal) essential ingredient : the first lady referring to the hungry angry mob saying "If they have no bread, they should eat brioche". I think this time the first lady knows that the brioche is not big enough for the crowd.
Actually, the US seem to handle the bonus issue much better than France...
I was referring to the current administration. I will not raise a polemic on whether those bonuses fit well in the global strategy adopted by the previous administration.Ivan Seeking said:Reminds me a bit of the Republicans who were claiming that the economy is just fine even as the market was beginning to crash.
humanino said:I was referring to the current administration. I will not raise a polemic on whether those bonuses fit well in the global strategy adopted by the previous administration.
signerror said:A damning editorial will appear in the Times today. By an A.I.G. executive who just resigned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?pagewanted=all
gmax137 said:lowlypion, nothing in your comments suggests that you have even read the letter. Or do you really believe that all of the thousands of people who worked in any of the AIG divisions are equally responsible?
Not to mention that he'll be able to get a tidy tax deduction for contributing it to a charity. I wonder what charity?LowlyPion said:Moreover his offer to contribute to a charity serves no useful purpose, when agreeing as others have to return the bonus would make a surer statement, though not drawing attention to himself, and still leave his hands clean.
I'm not sure this is relevant. It's more like another waiter or customer spill water, and your waiter does the best he can to address the situation.LowlyPion said:When the waiter spills dinner in your lap, surely he doesn't expect a tip still.
Astronuc said:If the government had a problem with the bonuses, then they should have withheld the amount from the money given to AIG, and not threatened the individuals with a 90% tax that was essentially punitive.
I don't see Jake DeSantis's letter as being self-serving. He simply lies it out as he sees it. Those bonuses are nothing compared to what other companies have paid out, and it was norm until this quarter. DeSantis makes the point that none of those receiving the bonuses were responsible for the Credit Default Swaps that brought AIG down.
Should DeSantis and others be held accountable for what others did within the company, especially when they were not involved or responsible? Most companies are so compartmentalized that one group certainly doesn't know what another group is doing. They learn about it as information trickles in from others or management.
Are the bonuses excessive? Well some will say yes and others no.
A nice tax deduction on his one dollar salary?Evo said:Not to mention that he'll be able to get a tidy tax deduction for contributing it to a charity. I wonder what charity?
I believe he said that he and others stayed and took pay cuts to help out when they could have easily left and gone elsewhere because they were assured that they would be receiving their bonuses. Just how many people do you think are out there that are willing to clean up someone elses mess for little to nothing? To work their butts off for a year and when they are rewarded get called greedy dirtbags who ought to be hanged?LowlyPion said:The point is that DeSantis chose to take his compensation as bonus. It doesn't matter to me that he wasn't to blame for credit default swapping. The real issue is that he deferred compensation in the hopes of capturing a risk premium when things went well. But things didn't go well. His fault or not, he took a gamble and lost. He got the wrong side of the risk coin. So pay the cashier. If he couldn't afford to gamble, then he shouldn't.
Is it fair? Maybe he made a bad choice. And I guess it is bad luck. But publicly bellyaching about it in the Op-Ed, looks to me to be a further bad choice aimed at drawing attention to himself for whatever gain he might hope to reap from the notoriety. If he really offered value to AIG, I'd think he would be better advised to negotiate a new arrangement with them based on what he could do for them going forward, instead of burning bridges and throwing stones as the company continues to burn around him.
gmax137 said:So it's really more like an annual paycheck...
http://neveryetmelted.com/2009/03/25/jake-desantis-shrugged/"
25 Mar 2009 um 10:54 am
Buh-bye, Jakie. And take all your arrested-development adolescent shruggers with you.
...
Maybe all you Rand cultists didn’t notice, but the crony capitalists in Atlas Shrugged were villains. The heroes actually made useful durable goods. Now go, raise your own kobe beef, build your own mansions, mow your own golf courses, roll your own cohibas, whatever. Just go. Go now. Before we get the guillotines out.
Compared to Mr. DeSantis's salary over the past decade? Every average American...TheStatutoryApe said:I believe he said that he and others stayed and took pay cuts to help out when they could have easily left and gone elsewhere because they were assured that they would be receiving their bonuses. Just how many people do you think are out there that are willing to clean up someone elses mess for little to nothing?
It's just the mood of the nation right now. And we're only using him as a scapegoat.To work their butts off for a year and when they are rewarded get called greedy dirtbags who ought to be hanged?
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.htm
The pyramid scheme phenomenon in Albania is important because its scale relative to the size of the economy was unprecedented, and because the political and social consequences of the collapse of the pyramid schemes were profound. At their peak, the nominal value of the pyramid schemes' liabilities amounted to almost half of the country's GDP. Many Albanians—about two-thirds of the population—invested in them. When the schemes collapsed, there was uncontained rioting, the government fell, and the country descended into anarchy and a near civil war in which some 2,000 people were killed. Albania's experience has significant implications for other countries in which conditions are similar to those that led to the schemes' rise in Albania, and others can learn from the way the Albanian authorities handled—and mishandled—the crisis.
TheStatutoryApe said:I believe he said that he and others stayed and took pay cuts to help out when they could have easily left and gone elsewhere because they were assured that they would be receiving their bonuses. Just how many people do you think are out there that are willing to clean up someone elses mess for little to nothing? To work their butts off for a year and when they are rewarded get called greedy dirtbags who ought to be hanged?
It is exactly the same legally. A promise to pay a retention bonus is the same as a promise to pay salary or an hourly wage. Especially after the terms are met. It would be despicable for a company to promise an hourly wage, then not pay it after the fact.LowlyPion said:Unfortunately bonus isn't exactly as sure a thing under the law as salary