COMMENTARY: AIG Bailout

by Babette Maxwell




I, for one, am impressed with the immediate attention given by the Obama administration and New York State Attorney General's Office to exorbitant bonuses--$165 million of which was payable on Sunday--on the docket for AIG executives. 

First, it is taxpayer money that bailed these guys out. That's me. That's you. That's all of us. Those of us struggling to make ends meet, find odd jobs for any kind of money and who pay our bills responsibly are the ones whose hard-earned tax dollars are being used to bail out the company with the largest corporate fourth quarter loss in history---$61.7 billion.

Second, any kind of bonus should have been contingent upon performance.  And, I'm saying, if the company you work for required a $170 billion government bailout, you didn't perform. 

Third, we're performing so they don't have to. I say again, it is our money going into their pockets. We're not getting our own money back here. We are funding their second homes, their new decks and their first class vacations. I'm sorry, but I find it increasingly more difficult to find sympathy for the executives waiting for their handouts/bonuses. They are, after all, the ones who didn't perform. And, it's because you and I did that we can afford to bail these executives out of their financial hole. 

Fourth, those working for AIG should be grateful they even have a job. Without the government (read: the taxpayers) coming to the company’s rescue, AIG would have declared bankruptcy and they’d all be unemployed. That means no salary, let alone a bonus. 

Exclusive of your home, shouldn’t a job really be your largest asset?

I find it nauseating that at a time when retirees have lost everything, unemployment is up and families' net worth have been cut in half, that $165 million in taxpayer’s money is even being considered allocated to a group of executive failures. 

I am hoping, really hoping, that Attorney General Cuomo and Secretary Geithner find a way to stop these atrocities because someone needs to make these executives accountable for their failures. Perhaps they should fire them all and hire some of those who are unemployed. The government does now own 80% of AIG.