Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Back off of AIG

I am so tired of everyone vilifying business and capitalism. AIG disclosed to Congress last year about the retention bonuses. This is not a surprise to those hacks in Congress.

Furthermore, Chris Dodd (D-Conn) wrote into the stimulus bill that bonuses agreed upon before February 11, 2009 would be exempt. His own amendment!

While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.


And he is out there spewing hatred for the people of AIG who are getting their bonuses. This after AIG was his single largest campaign contributor. This shows his total incompetence. Let's not forget that he was on the oversight committee of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-the main reason we are in this mess.

Listen up people in corporate America. When Chuck Schumer (D-NY) rants that if employees refuse to give back the bonuses that were already promised, then the federal government is going to come in an tax those bonuses at 100%, I sat up. If they can finagle a way to get bonuses from private citizens, (more than what they already get-which is like 60%!) we should all be very afraid. What's to stop them from coming after your business? How long do you think it will take for the government to think that University Of Phoenix's bonus structure is unfair? Or what about Arizona Public Service? Or how about any of the retail stores or bank branches?

More importantly how long will we allow the federal government to tell us what we're owed? What we're worth? We decide that. Not them. That's the tragedy of this whole business. The masses are outraged over something that Congress and the President have manufactured. And you know what? If you want a bonus, then you should be willing to work your tail off for it.

The people Chuck Schumer and the Liberal Democrats are mad at are the individual employees who are receiving those bonuses. Not AIG Corporate heads. After all, AIG is one of Chuck Schumer's biggest campaign contributors. It's not the corporate big wigs who get hurt by this legislation, it's the individuals.

We should all be nervous.

2 comments:

chandy said...

Do you think it could be argued that AIG quit participating in capitalism when they accepted astronomical amounts of government money?

But I do agree with you, comrade, that it is disconcerting...ok, terrifying, that the government can spontaneously change laws to tax bonuses at 90%. That's a slippery slope.

Jessie said...

Yes, I do think that AIG, and all those other businesses, which took bail out money ceased participating in capitalism. It still goads me that they were considered too big to fail.

What is that? It's totally unnatural. Things fail all the time. Things, people, business, either fail or they succeed. That's it. Except when government steps in and then it's a mess.

I wish AIG would have gone into bankruptcy. That was the responsible thing to do. Instead they are fighting a losing battle and the individual employees are told to "hang themselves". How awful. What kind of world do we live in?

On that note, "Alice in Wonderland" is sounding like a better choice for my book of the month!