Posted on 03/25/2009 4:03:51 AM PDT by Tom D.
Good point. I shouldn’t have referred to those creating the anger as being all Democrats... There are definitely those on “both sides” of the aisle that are participating in the whole thing.
I am so sick of politicians of all stripes.
Not in Chicago they aren’t. They violated state law as well (60 days notice). This was a valid contract and should have been honored. They tried to cheat these people out of their paychecks as well...how can you defend this? Do you not see how wrong it is to have special laws for the masters and none for the workers in our economy...the law is the law or should be.
I may go fishing for the Feilbogen contract, just out of personal curiosity, but point out that the term you've selected, "bonus contract," will conflate various rationales for payment. I've been on the sending and receiving end of performance bonuses. Payment was contingent on meeting date targets or other objectively measurable performance targets, and also contingent on being an employee on the day the bonus was to be paid. DeSantis was working under what is called a retention bonus. From the tone of DeSantis' letter, had he known that the contract was worthless, he would have quit months ago.
Do you think Rand would have defended the Wall Street bankers...she hated failure. These people define the word failure. She would not have been for money to be handed out in a company that lost much money to those who caused the whole mess.
The guy’s department was put into another unit...it had nothing to do with performance...it’s on this thread somewhere.
Please clarify. Do you mean the contract isn't between the company and the union, or that a company can't close a business in Chicago?
-- They tried to cheat these people out of their paychecks as well...how can you defend this? --
I don't see where I did defend it. I said any breach could be litigated. There is another contract in the Republic Window mess, and that is the one between Republic Window and Bank of America.
From the tone of your comment, I take it that these workers performed direct labor, and were not paid for that direct labor. Is that your position?
-- Do you not see how wrong it is to have special laws for the masters and none for the workers in our economy...the law is the law or should be. --
That's just a general feelgood statement. Of course I want the law to be predictable and fair; and contracts to be predicable and fair (and enforceable) too, not subject to populist and reactionary forces.
The contract was between the company and the union as far as I can tell was not based on a location...they only had one location and opened the Iowa plant subsequent to leaving Chicago. They did not pay their employees for the work they had performed either and did not honor their contract. This is not reactionary...fair is fair. A contract is a contract whether it’s with the Wall Street gang or a union or whatever. Contracts are broken on a regular basis- ask any lawyer. I just don’t understand the argument that somehow AIG bonuses are sacred somehow.
Perhaps where I linked the article.
According to AIG's Motion for Summary Judgement, Feilbogen's suit was based on his claim of receiving an ORAL promise of $1.3 million bonus for 2003, made by a John Finigan. There is no written contract covering this payout, or at least Feilbogen didn't produce one, and none of AIG's HR departments has a record of a written promise to pay.
Finigan denied making a promise of a guaranteed payout.
That's a strawman. The contention is that the retention bonuses should be honored, because these payments are memorialized in written contracts, and the beneficiaries upheld their end of the deal. BUT, if AIG had declared bankruptcy, then those deals would be settled by a receiver. I'd wager that the workers would obtain something more than $1 for whatever time they had spend working, and something less than the full amount of the written agreement stipulated. As you noted, "fair is fair," and as fair as we can manage in bankruptcy.
Your argument goes in two directions, it seems. You are offended at what you see as Republic Window breaking a contract, but you aren't offended at AIG breaking a contract.
The government had a choice: let AIG go under or arrange a bailout. They chose bailout. In order to make a bailout work, you need to keep the workforce. Hence the retention bonuses, which were duly approved in the original legislation, thanks to the efforts of Chwissy Dodd and Treasury officials, and enacted and signed. So, our stinkin taxpayer money is duly squandered (or not, if it was really vital to save AIG).
And the folks to get mad at are Congress and the President, not the AIG employees working to make the bailout as successful as they can. Congress and the President must not be allowed to welsh just because they now fear voter disapproval of the deal. Because, if they can screw these people, they can screw all of us.
Very interesting, I found the filing and looked at the details...this person was promised a bonus...there were signed spread sheets and memo’s etc...AIG broke their word and tried to get out of the contract-verbal and otherwise after they strung the employee along...the employee had an opportunity to go elsewhere for a substantial amount of money...so I still say they are hypocrites. Oral contracts are enforceable and legally binding...so I guess AIG gets to decide what is enforce and what is not...although they settled and did not ask for summery judgment. I do not agree with enriching AIG execs or others at bailed out banks with taxpayer money.
See this is exactly the wrong thing...they do not need those who caused this. They should have been fired on the spot...I blame Paulson. As for retention bonuses-what a joke a fair number of those receiving bonuses are no longer employed at AIG so why did they receive a bonus...hush money perhaps?
They need to put up or shut up. Either pay out the bonuses as agreed or go bankrupt and let the court tally up the remains and sort who gets how much of what they are owed.
He got a 1.3 million payout in 2002, pursuant to written records, spreadsheets, etc. But there was NO corollary written record of a promise for 2003, and he was pushed out -- in a huff it appears -- months before the 2003 payout was made.
-- Oral contracts are enforceable and legally binding... --
Both sides have a case in this one, otherwise it wouldn't be in court. It seems the written contracts are in conflict with the oral one. In particular, Feilbogen signed that he had read AIG's employment manual, and that he understood the only payment promises that were legally binding were those that had been reduced to writing. Then he sued for enforcement of a disputed oral agreement that hadn't been reduced to writing.
Another "mistake" was telling his boss he had a better offer elsewhere, in order to leverage a doubling of the discretionary guaranteed payout. They took him up on it.
-- I do not agree with enriching AIG execs or others at bailed out banks with taxpayer money. --
Well then, advocate they all work for nothing. That's essentially what you advocate for DeSantis.
As I understand it, the CDS operation, which did the damage, was only a few people. I don't know what happened to those people, but clearly, if they want to make a bailout work, they need to retain most of the rest of the people. And it's not fair to string along those folks (such as Mr. DeSantis) at $1 year with false promises of huge retention bonuses if they stay and do the work.
It looks like they've probably blown the bailout with their political demagoguery, so maybe it's time to pull the plug and stop throwing good money after bad.
According to what I read, they told him he was an important member of the team...and promised him the bonus...who knows? What I would like to know is why is Countrywide being screwed by AIG while they send money to foreign banks...AIG is close to being a criminal enterprise if you ask me...I would like to know about their offshore accounts as well.
What a great way to get your resume posted on the New York Times, complete with damage control and a philanthropic bonus.
Here’s the problem. Anyone who thinks that any one person or entity can be blamed for this mess is short on the facts. On the one hand, it’s utterly deplorable that the government is fomenting a witch hunt. On the other hand, executives like Mr. DeSantis are required, by law, to report irregularities and/or fraud to the SEC. Whether it was his unit or not, if he were head of trading, there’s no way he didn’t know or have suspicion about AIG’s returns, product structure, and/or sales pitch. It’s no better than a manager at Madoff who sees the ridiculous, impossible guaranteed return on investment with the firm and doesn’t at least get off that ship full of rats.
I want to feel sympathy for Mr. DeSantis, but I don’t, except on the level of not wanting any harm coming to anyone. I fear the ability of the gov’t to incite the mob will result in tragedy, and for that, I sympathize with him. But, really, who is he kidding? He benefited HANDSOMELY in the framework of an epic fraud, and last I checked, I helped pay his $700k retention bonus.
If for the sake of agreement we say your premise is correct, what was your point?
Just askin'?
They sure are. In that case AIG was solvent and DeSantis was Feilbogen's boss. In this case AIG was insolvent and taxpayer money was and is being used to fund all of the divisions ops. There's also the difference that in that case DeSantis didn't pitch a fit and have a M. Teresa moment. Another difference, according to DeSantis, is that he was just working for a dollar here and had a duty to the politicians, as he said. That must have been to cover and clean up for AIG's complicity in Barney fag and D miricles's work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.