From: Mario Goveia > Without excusing what AIG has chosen to do with their bonuses, which > should only be paid to those who create corporate value as a percentage > of that value
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:08:56 -0400 From: "Bosco D'Mello" <[email protected]> I take it you support the execs be paid bonuses. Mario responds: Bosco, what part of my opinion regarding bonuses, "...which should only be paid to those who create corporate value as a percentage of that value." did you fail to understand? Perhaps you are unaware that most of the bonuses that AIG had agreed to pay did not go to "those who create corporate value" - we know this because AIG was close to collapse in large part because of the actions of those people. Most of the bonuses were "Retention bonuses" paid to people whom the company had decided needed to be "retained", regardless of their performance, and hence were not based on any creating corporate value. One of my points was that AIG had disclosed their bonus plans a year ago and some of those now feigning outrage knew about these plans all along, or should have known if they were paying attention. Current Treasury Secretary Geithner, who was Chairman of the NY Federal Reserve Bank previously, was directly involved in the original AIG bailout plan which started last year under the previous administration, and should have known about these disclosures, but says he only found out a week ago. Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Financial Services Committee, added wording in the stimulus plan that specifically exempted bonus contracts that were signed before February 11, 2009, and is now also pretending he had no idea. While $165 million is a large number, it pales in comparison with the BILLIONS and TRILLIONS that are likely to be spent, and attention is being diverted from those much larger programs, some of which are also far more risky and based purely on political ideology.
