And the winner is...AIG!
According to the New York Times, the American International Group also known as (A.I.G) was one of the largest insurance companies in the United States before its collapse in September of 2008. The company allegedly collapsed due to the mortgage crisis. To help cease the inevitable collapse of the company, the federal government bailed them out around the tune of $5 billion.1 Okay, that is natural; the company needed help, so the government stepped in.
Here is when things get controversial. The same individuals that almost lead the company to its collapse were going to be rewarded with over $165 million of those bailout dollars in bonuses. President Barack Obama said that he would “pursue every single legal avenue to block” those bonuses from happening. The problem? They were ALREADY given out! When people found out about it, and asked for the bonuses to be retracted, they said that wasn’t possible.2
We know that the economy is bad, and that people want some extra dollars, so giving bonuses should be a good thing, right? WRONG. In this particular situation, these bonuses are given to high, rich executives, as aforementioned, the same executives who ran the company into the ground. There are so many things wrong with this. First of all, those are tax payer dollars, that should be used to help advance and benefit the company, and giving large bonuses to employees is not furthering the company. Secondly, it has been stated that the reason why the bonuses were given was to convince the employees to keep working for the company. Um, don’t you think it’d make more sense to give the bonuses to employees in order to LEAVE the company? Why keep around the same people who screwed you over, out with the old, and in with the new!
Overall, while the happy little AIG people have their fun little shopping sprees at Tiffany’s, the rest of America can have fun struggling to put food on the table, while they watch their tax dollars fund Edward Liddy’s (the CEO of AIG) new Armani suit. Makes sense to me!
(1)http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/business/companies/american_international_group/index.html
(2) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123721970101743003.html
According to the New York Times, the American International Group also known as (A.I.G) was one of the largest insurance companies in the United States before its collapse in September of 2008. The company allegedly collapsed due to the mortgage crisis. To help cease the inevitable collapse of the company, the federal government bailed them out around the tune of $5 billion.1 Okay, that is natural; the company needed help, so the government stepped in.
Here is when things get controversial. The same individuals that almost lead the company to its collapse were going to be rewarded with over $165 million of those bailout dollars in bonuses. President Barack Obama said that he would “pursue every single legal avenue to block” those bonuses from happening. The problem? They were ALREADY given out! When people found out about it, and asked for the bonuses to be retracted, they said that wasn’t possible.2
We know that the economy is bad, and that people want some extra dollars, so giving bonuses should be a good thing, right? WRONG. In this particular situation, these bonuses are given to high, rich executives, as aforementioned, the same executives who ran the company into the ground. There are so many things wrong with this. First of all, those are tax payer dollars, that should be used to help advance and benefit the company, and giving large bonuses to employees is not furthering the company. Secondly, it has been stated that the reason why the bonuses were given was to convince the employees to keep working for the company. Um, don’t you think it’d make more sense to give the bonuses to employees in order to LEAVE the company? Why keep around the same people who screwed you over, out with the old, and in with the new!
Overall, while the happy little AIG people have their fun little shopping sprees at Tiffany’s, the rest of America can have fun struggling to put food on the table, while they watch their tax dollars fund Edward Liddy’s (the CEO of AIG) new Armani suit. Makes sense to me!
(1)http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/business/companies/american_international_group/index.html
(2) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123721970101743003.html
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