Dear A.I.G., I Quit!

The New York Times ^ | March 24, 2009 | Op-Ed Contributor

[GeronL]

Ayn Rand was pretty smart

[papasmurf]

Having read the entire letter, and assuming he’s telling the truth, I commend, and empathize, with him.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Yes...and taxpayer funded bonuses for failed execs is SOCIALISM...and you do not get to choose your brand of socialism, either.

Bummer that this exec was in a “profitable” (ahem) part of the company. The company still has failed...and would be history if it wasnt for the hundreds of billions in bailouts from Bush and Obama

[kidd]

If this guy didn’t work for AIG, the company would have lost even more money. As far as you know, he probably saved you $10 billion in additional bailout money.

He brought value to AIG, and he was not responsible for its losses.

Capatilists will compensate you for the value that you bring them. Socialists will compensate you for your time.

This man expects to be compensated for his value, as he was contracted to do.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Anything related to AIG is “corporate welfare”....they took hundreds of billions of my tax dollars, and should be out of business.

This conservative will call out all socialists. Do not tell me to shut up. You do not get to choose your socialism

[MortMan]

Have you not read the letter, or can you not comprehend its content?

Socialism is the government buying into the company to begin with. Abrogating these contracts, under threat of vigilante violence, under color of law, is anarchy.

[gieriscm]

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.

So how many here can afford to work for $1 a year salary and a bonus that may be snatched by FedGov, because you feel it's the right thing to do?

Excellent letter.

[teenyelliott]

Let's put this in a way you can understand.

Imagine the company you work for goes bankrupt. Would you want to continue to be paid if you continued to work there, while the company was reorganizing? I think you would, regardless of whether or not your standard level of payment is fifteen bucks an hour or fifteen million a year.

ALL of this is the government's fault, not the fault of the men on the receiving end of the money due to them. They expected to be paid by the company that employed them, as would you.

The government agreed to bail out the joint. When the capital is infused, it is supposed to go toward running a business, and paying employees is part of running a business.

Damn, you hopped right on that MSM Outrage Train, didn't you?

[Recovering_Democrat]

The guy who wrote the letter worked to help the company. Get a grip, friend.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Thank you!

With some of the posts on here...we might need some more of those Whaaambulances....this AIG stuff is making it hard to tell the Bolsheviks from the Mensheviks

[BlueMondaySkipper]

Anything related to AIG is “corporate welfare”....they took hundreds of billions of my tax dollars, and should be out of business.

This conservative will call out all socialists. Do not tell me to shut up. You do not get to choose your socialism

I initially thought that you just neglected to read the article but now I realize that you are an idiot.

If what this gentleman says is true, he was not responsible for the collapse of AIG and in fact worked in a division that was profitable. He was promised compensation in the form of a bonus and it was rescinded due to political pressure. It's NOT socialism to pay him that bonus.

By your definition we are all socialists since we get some benefit from the government. That's crap and even though this may be lost on you, most intelligent people can see the difference.

[Non-Sequitur]

Socialism is the government buying into the company to begin with. Abrogating these contracts, under threat of vigilante violence, under color of law, is anarchy.

And yet if the government forced GM to abrogate their Union contracts then most of the people on this board would cheer.

This gentleman made his decision to hitch his wagon to a sinking ship, and his division does not operate in a vacuum. His area is part of the whole company, and any organization that loses $60 billion in a single quarter has no cause to be giving bonuses to anyone regardless of division. Get AIG back on a firm financial footing and then talk bonuses. And if he wants to walk away, teriffic. I've no doubt that he's in better financial shape to do so than most of the people under him who have been or will be laid off.

[ontap]

The politicians have paid off their big shots and villianized the people left to take the public eye off their communist programs.

[terryt]

So, an executive from a failed company should get a taxpayer funded bonus? That is socialism...

You either didn't read or couldn't comprehend the letter. This is still a private sector company.

Once the government bailed them out, they are required to honor those contracts. If the company had been allowed to go bankrupt, the contracts would probably have been voided by the bankrupty judge and the employees would have quit. Even in bankruptcy, the judge will often allow for bonuses because they recognize the benefit of keeping the key employees on board to retain some value for the creditors. Perhaps the government should have let AIG go into bankruptcy, BUT they didn't.

The company benefited (and therefore, the government shareholders) by those employees staying on when in fact many of the capable (and blameless) would have found positions elsewhere. Why should the employees stay? Would the taxpayer benefit from losing all of the management and key employees? Perhaps we'll see now. If I were one of the employees I would quit, keep the money I earned, and tell everyone to kiss my a$$.

[Tucsonican]

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you work construction and do a job on a military installation....then don’t get paid for what you do. That’s taxpayer money too.

Maybe you’re just under the impression that people in this country should work for nothing more than pride and “patriotism”? Well, buddy, that’s the direction we’re heading!

This is AMERICA, Damn It!!! We built this country on the principle that people should be rewarded for the work that they do! We encouraged good labor practices by honoring contracts! Now, peolpe like you are willing to piss it all away for 15 min of “feel good” spite. America has NEVER succeeded by being spiteful...we adapt and we overcome and we shun wasteful hatred because it doesn’t gain us anything.

Maybe, when you read the comments from me and the others, you’ll take the time to reassess your priorites.

[Natural Law]

"Read: I am quitting because I am not getting my taxpayer funded bonus...

If that is your take you obviously didn't bother to read the letter. He is quitting because the company and the government has broken their contract with him, because he was in no way responsible for the decisions or actions that damaged the company, and that he won't work for essentially no compensation out of a sense of duty to the company, the AIG president or the current administration. He sounds just like a founding father to me.

[terryt]

I initially thought that you just neglected to read the article but now I realize that you are an idiot.

Bingo!

[BlueMondaySkipper]

And yet if the government forced GM to abrogate their Union contracts then most of the people on this board would cheer.

WRONG

If the government "forced" GM to go into bankruptcy and abrogate the union contracts I most certainly would NOT cheer.

If the government refused to bail them out and then they went into bankruptcy on thier own volition and as a result of thier own actions, THEN I would support thier right to abrogate those contracts.

Understand the difference???

When the government bailed AIG out they certainly had the ability to put rules into place that would have prohibited bonuses. They didn't and the company played by the rules as written. To come back and change them after the fact is wrong and illegal. The only way it's even possible is because laws don't matter anymore.

[CodeToad]

“This conservative will call out all socialists.”

You have no idea what this situation is about. You are simply reacting to superficial news about it. It is you that is the socialist, i.e. liberal, as you obviously have not looked at the facts and instead are looking only at the emotional knee-jerk reaction to it. Only liberals react to things using emotion. Try reading the facts of the guy’s case before mouthing off it is socialism.

[numberonepal]

Read: I am quitting because I am not getting my taxpayer funded bonus...

Umm you do know these bonuses where agreed to between the COMPANY and the MAN - not GOVERNMENT? Right? Do you know and understand the difference, or are you just swilling the class warfare Kool-Aid with the rest of the commies?