by Damozel | Not to defend AIG, but there is a certain amount of scapegoating going on. I mean, I'm furious, and so should you be, but the posturing of Congress, AIG's very own Chair, Geithner, and the rest just induces that old bitter, post-partisan laughter. Our elected officials have every reason to point fingers at AIG. If the public can be induced to scapegoat the managers of a single company, the public might forget their role in enabling this whole mess!
I can even find it in my heart to feel a certain degree of compassion for them. Well, up to a point. And only because I've still got a job and a roof over my head. The Washington Post asks us to picture this piteous scene:
They watched quietly as members of Congress referred to them as greedy and incompetent.
They heard more than one demand that their names be released to the seething American public. They heard the chairman of American International Group, Edward M. Liddy, tell lawmakers that people, in e-mails sent to AIG-FP, suggested that the firm's leaders "should be executed with piano wire around their necks."
Oh hell, yes: that was way, way, way out of line. Even the Malkin said so.
Pasciucco urged them to keep their heads down, to act professionally and to continue working to extricate Financial Products from its more than $1.6 trillion in outstanding derivative contracts. He acknowledged that the past few days have been like being "inside the piñata." ...
In reply, they told him that they worried mostly about getting shot, despite the guards now patrolling the parking lot, the front door and some of their homes....
The handful of souls who championed the firm's now-infamous
credit-default swaps are, by nearly every account, long since departed.
Those left behind to clean up the mess, the majority of whom never lost
a dime for AIG, now feel they have been sold out by their Congress and
their president....
"They've chosen to throw us under the bus," said a Financial Products
executive, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing
reprisals. "They have vilified us...(WaPo)
Up to that point, I was feeling, against my wishes, on their side. I don't think it's right, given the current mood of the public, to reveal their names, as New York's attorney general is apparently thinking of doing.
Before releasing the list, the attorney general’s office plans to review it and assess whether individuals on it might have reason to fear for their safety.
I imagine that this is not the moment. How would we feel if they became the victims of violence? People are "seething," the article says. Throwing the scapegoats out of the sleigh so they can be devoured will have the salutary effect of diverting attention from the drivers, so you can see the rationale. But it's the wrong thing to do.
Of course, on the other hand, there's this:
[The AIG execs] say what is missing from this week's hysteria is perspective. The very handsome retention payments they received over the past week were set in motion early last year when the firm's former president, Joe Cassano, was on his way out the door. Financial Products was already running into trouble on its risky credit bets, and the year ahead looked grim. People were weighing offers from other firms, and AIG executives feared that too many departures could lead to disaster.
So AIG stepped in with an offer to employees of Financial Products. Work through all of 2008, and you'd get a lump payment in March 2009..(WaPo)
The thing is: I don't care what AIG offered them; AIG has no money. Or rather, the money it has includes my money, and your money, and the reason it's got our money is that we were told that massive infusion of taxpayer bucks was the only thing that could save it...and that by saving it, we would save ourselves.
After all: If those guys were not at AIG, where would they be now? What incredibly high paying position in the financial services industry would they now be holding...and for how long?
The question is or should be a simple one: in a time of financial meltdown, whether AIG can funnel taxpayer dollars into the pockets of their executives.
As for salvaging their reputations, surely they are free to refuse to accept their ginormous bonuses? Surely the tax ramifications of allocating money to them which they then give back can be squared with the government? Etc.
At the end of the day, people who take more than what any reasonable person would call "a fair share" are going to put themselves -- or at best, their reputations -- at risk in times when average members of the public (who also worked hard and made sacrifices and never dreamed of raking in a few million for their hard work) are seeing their own resources go down the drain.
But when it's actual money collected from taxpayers being pissed down the latrine? That's an insult of the first degree, particularly since I am pretty sure that most of those managers could live better off the interest on their interest than a huge number of America's laid-off auto workers.
All they'd have to do to be un-vilified is to decline to accept those enormous bonuses. Instead of several million, take a couple of hundred thousand to see them through while they look for other employment. That would more see most of us through for a few months, yeah?
Surely they can see the upside to being the guys who really DO dig AIG out of the mess it's in...without requiring obscene amounts of money for doing this? Wouldn't that make the goats into heroes? Wouldn't it be the public-spirited, ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you, patriotic thing to do? Wouldn't it be better to be remembered by posterity as one of the ones who helped to vitiate the harm caused by the collapse of the financial industry than one of the profiteering profiteers who profited by it?
Memeorandum has more.
RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS
"What's the Big Deal? It's a 10th of 1% of the Money We Gave Them for Sucking": Jon Stewart Tracks "The Enragening" (A Twofer)
AIG Execs Explain Why They Deserve Their Bonuses; AIG Explains Why It Has to Pay Them
Michael Steele Hasn't Kept His Promise to Make the GOP Hip-Hop, So Princess Sparkle Pony Does it For Him
Right-eous Wrath Part 2: Colbert Forms Angry Mob
Rage Against the Machine: Sen. Grassley Urges Japanese Model for AIG Execs ("Resign, or Go Commit Suicide")
Update: AIG to Give Bonuses and the Resulting Political Theatre
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Econ4u on how Much Money Cramer Might Have Lost You
Stewart v. Cramer: Jon Sums up CNBC and Wall Street, Jim Appears Humbly Apologetic
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