Nova wrote:
Leon wrote:

What I find ammusing is that congress was fully aware last year that
those bonuses were going to be paid out before AIG received any bail
out money. Like you would expect, congress has been caught with it's
pants down
once again hoping that AIG would not have paid out the bonuses. Like you
would expect they are now making up laws out of anger to
try and save face, and that really scares me.
Like you would expect the media leaces out all the particular facts
that would make this story less than sensational.

IMHO where AIG screwed once again on top of many many screw ups was
calling the money, bonuses.

I think calling it a bonus was fairly accurate, just slightly
misspelled.
It should have been called a "boned-us" award.

One way or another, the company was contractually obligated to make the
payments or defend itself in lawsuits in which it would be in breach of
contract, with the result that the expense would likely be several times
greater.

The right response to Congress IMO would have been "I've looked at this and
our lawyers have looked at this and we cannot find any legal grounds for
abrogating the contracts under which those payments were made--if you would
be kind enough to provide us some enabling legislation it would be very
helpful.

And Congress immediately enacting a new tax quite frankly makes the Congress
look like vindictive spoiled brats having a tantrum.