beachdrivegirl
JoB I don’t think you understand my point. My point isn’t whether or not what past AIG employees did is illegal or wrong. I think we all agree it is wrong. With that being said though, I am not going to become a victim and point fingers around b/c everyone was playing in this game. We were all loving our big wins!! And if we all had a problem with this “fraud” the time to have a “problem” with it was three years ago. And obviously both you and I didn’t have a problem with it or we would have not put our savings into our 401K’s.
My point includes that yes I do now see that what these past employees did was wrong. My point today also includes the thinking of what can we do to fix the wrong doings of these past employees (who aren’t employed anymore by AIG) while also limiting the loss of all Americans. IMO, (from my research and reading) is that the way to fix this is to have experienced and qualified employees. We need to be able to de-risk these portfolios as quickly as possible. Your average Joe is not going to have the experience to de-risk these portfolios. And most of the individuals with enough experience to accomplish everything we need to be accomplished have either a) secure jobs or b) are trying to get as far away as possible from AIG b/c being associated with that name (obviously) is not good. And those that are looking for jobs are not going to go apply @ AIG b/c of the tarnished name. So this leaves us in a bit of pickle. We need the portfolios de-risked as quickly as possible and we need experienced, qualified employees to do this. How do we accomplish this? Humans (like most animals) react well to positive reinforcement like bonuses. So like every other company out there, AIG decided to bonus employees in a few different phases for their work. (Yes, in case you missed it like you missed the fact that the bonuses are not illegal, there was a “bus tour”, and these contracts were done after the reorganization there is another bonus coming in 2010.)
My concern with your view as well as some of my fellow countrymen is that bonusing these employees was not illegal. It was not wrong. And channeling your anger towards AIG is foolish. If you are angry about these bonuses, you need to channel your dislike of the situation to your elected officials. They were the ones that should have put language in the bailout specifying what the bailout money could and could not be used for.