Dear AIG: I quit....

Well that’ll learn him, the next time he wants to work for a year at a failing company being taken over by politicians, get a salary!

He would definitely have had a salary because he would have walked into another institute and instantly been hired.

He is clearly qualified for a lot of shit.

:picard:

If he hadn’t agreed to work for $1 and deferr his compensation, he, like everyone else at AIG would STILL BE DRAWING HIS SALARY TO THIS DAY. That is the point, this is hardly a reward for running the company in to the ground. It is compensation for making a commitment to the company to try and turn things around.

The point of the post is to not throw a pity-party for individuals, but to shed light on why “public outcry” at the “AIG bonuses” is a moronic witch hunt.

It is being publiscized as if they were recieving bonuses related to performance that lead to the downfall of the company.

There are a few basic tennants that have already been adopte through this fiasco and the fact is, like it or not, it was not possible to “let AIG fail” and in order to do so, would have resulted in larger economic melt down.

So why then should the people that work for AIG suddenly do it for free? Oh yes, they wouldn’t, they would leave, thus causing AIG to fail.

The point is that why AT THIS POINT IN TIME, would we want to run off the talent that is going to help make things better. So Joe ‘the moron’ Plumber can feel better about himself?

Agreed, they had to know a “bonus” would receive a TON more scrutiny than an annual salary. Shame on them for agreeing to it.

Despite all this, I still don’t change my opinion of them.

This exact same situation can apply to GM, you all love to pick on the domestic automakers. Is every person there doing a terrible job directly relating to the companies rough times? No. Are they having to suffer for their company as a whole doing poorly? Absolutely.

it’s not like he dedicated his life to working with inner-city kids, or became a doctor who helps out in africa…

it’s a cutthroat make some $$$ field, he his throat got cut.

I just can’t feel bad for him… I agree was probably very good at what he did, so he should have no problem finding another job.

you’re really grasping at straws here theblue

??

again, this is not a pity party for individuals, it is a “gee wilicker, this is a scary precedent we are setting here” thread. The basis for this is weake and the implications are pretty scary.

the way I read it he wants people to feel bad for poor innocent him.

but as I said, I agree with his overall point.

Fair enough. The witch hunt itself is a waste of time and money. I would like to think that there is some value in it in the form of a culture shift back towards “earning” things, but I’m not sure if I’m that naive.

People just need to know that there are 2 sides to each story. The government cannot just mandate that all of the hardworking employees of an organization should be forced to work with no pay. The people of this country NEED that guy to be profitable, or else guess what, all of our tax money will be gone. If this guy doesn’t work hard to make AIG profitable, we will never get any money back from our loan.

how do you figure? do you really think the way to encourage movement in that direction is to take away compensation for work performed… on the basis of public opinion?

Yeah, companies in similar situations would have hard time finding people to work for them after this happened…
Also - Good job stabilizing the economy by making the legislative and tax environment totally unpredictable…

No no. Just if enough people get pissed off about thinking that others shouldn’t be rewarded for failure, maybe they might stop to think that maybe that applies to themselves. Again, that probably requires a certain amount of naivety on my part. :shrug:

Of course I see your point that it may have the opposite effect because of what may actually be happening.

I dunno. Fucked up situation from every angle. I’m just going to keep designing and building shit.

oh what, you mean the government officials that drive BMWs and live large on our dime while simultaneously getting their pockets lined by lobbyists too?

People never look inside the box to find the root of a problem. Why look at me when i can look at HIM!!!

And I would say “rewarded for failure” is the exception not the norm. One needs to evaluate what actually happened over a certain period of time against that persons personal metrics and responsibilities.

After the finance crew cooks the books for the year, a comapny may show a significant loss yet still reward the managment with performance based compensation. There are millions of reasons why, and why it would be completely justified. To think that a quick glance at a CEOs compensation and the last line on the balance sheet is a way to determine if their pay was merit based is exactly the problem.

Can I ask why we aren’t screaming to pull back the compensation from the legislators that supported the deregulation of the industry that allowed for this to happen in the first place?

I mean after all, if it was still prohibited, no one ever would have done it, no?

who influenced the pullback on the regulation? (and I don’t mean which politicians)