Cuomo's Brownshirts put squeeze on AIG

[TriskettheKid]

Hate to interject, but let me just ask:

Does anyone here actually work in a relevant field?

Contract law? Executive compensation? Anything?

It seems there's a lot of misdirected anger here.

 

[mhaze]

....The talking point may be correct, or it may not be. Not having read the bill myself, I do not know. Therefore if you have knowledge on this matter, you could do a service by sharing it.

My suspicion is that the bill does not "specifically authorize" such bonuses. Rather, I suspect the bill lacks a provision to prevent the payment of such bonuses. In other words, the payment of the bonuses was legal before the passage of the bill and remained legal after the passage.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009/Division B/Title ...

Feb 23, 2009 ... "(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment ... executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary. ...
en.wikisource.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009/Division_B

 

[The Painter]

Why is there no outcry about the bonuses being paid at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Oh yes, they are getting high salaries and big bonuses. 600,000 dollars and more. They are a root cause of the problem, and yet they get no punishment. They did the same thing as Enron. Why no punishment? Why is the shock only over AIG? Is it because Fannie and Freddie gave money to Obama, Kerry, Dodd and Clinton?

You have all been fooled by the government sleight of hand. Don't look over there, look over here. SUCKERS

Keep fighting over a few paltry million while billions, no, trillions, get wasted. You are all stupid. I thought this was skeptics, not SUCKERS

 

[applecorped]

I don't get it.

 

[Nova Land]

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009/Division B/Title ...

Feb 23, 2009 ... "(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment ... executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary. ...
en.wikisource.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009/Division_B

Thank you.

That's what I thought. The bonuses in question had already been authorized. The bill as passed put new restrictions on the ability of companies to make such bonus arrangements in the future, but did not do anything to prevent the payment of bonuses which had already been agreed to.

The section you are quoting is from the passage in which new restrictions are being established. it is not authorizing the previously agreed bonuses; it is simply saying these particular restrictions on new bonuses do not apply to the old bonuses.

So you were rather badly spun by the people you got that talking point from. Thank you for clarifying the point by posting the passage in question.

 

[leftysergeant]

Why is there no outcry about the bonuses being paid at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Oh yes, they are getting high salaries and big bonuses. 600,000 dollars and more. They are a root cause of the problem, and yet they get no punishment. They did the same thing as Enron. Why no punishment? Why is the shock only over AIG? Is it because Fannie and Freddie gave money to Obama, Kerry, Dodd and Clinton?

How much was the government bailout to Fanny and Freddy, and how much of the mess at F&M was due to derivatives trading? And how much have F&M paid out to foreign banks to cover their derivatives? These things do make a difference.

Frankly, I think that most executives are overpaid right now. If an investor or a depositor in a bank is losing money, the execs have nothing coming.

If an insurance company cannot pay any claim handed to them, it needs to be liquidated and the executives should not get paid.

If they are not performing a service, helping keep capital circulating up and down the food chain, they are useless and should be eliminated.

 

[applecorped]

Great talking points.

 

[Uzzy]

Uh, you do know the idea of "Fishing Expeditions" by prosecutors are a no no in the US Justice system?

I have no love whatsoever for the AIG execs, but this is beginning to sound like a witch hunt to me.
And then there is the issue that incompetency are not indictable offenses except in certain circumstances which do not seem to apply here.

If fishing expeditions are off the table, could the government not demand to look at the AIG books, all transactions etc, and turn them over to the DoJ? I mean, the government does own AIG.

 

[leftysergeant]

If fishing expeditions are off the table, could the government not demand to look at the AIG books, all transactions etc, and turn them over to the DoJ? I mean, the government does own AIG.

The DoJ should go in there and do it anyway, who cares whether we own any part of it. There may be deliberate fraud going on. Since when did private property become so sacred that even a search warrant is not enforceable?



While we're at it, maybe it is time to get a constitutional ammendment pushed through to end the superstition of corporate personhood. There never was any such thing in the constitution and the first court case may not even have been decided as later numbskulls think it was.

When corporations are treated as people, people whom they harm suffer, because corporations have the added finacial muscle with which to defend themselves.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

The DoJ should go in there and do it anyway, who cares whether we own any part of it. There may be deliberate fraud going on. Since when did private property become so sacred that even a search warrant is not enforceable?



While we're at it, maybe it is time to get a constitutional ammendment pushed through to end the superstition of corporate personhood. There never was any such thing in the constitution and the first court case may not even have been decided as later numbskulls think it was.

When corporations are treated as people, people whom they harm suffer, because corporations have the added finacial muscle with which to defend themselves.

How much of the constitution are you really interested in violating to satisfy your self-righteous ultra-leftist anger?

 

[dudalb]

Please don't call lefty a liberal. He is considerably more readical then mainstream liberalism.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

How much of the constitution are you really interested in violating to satisfy your self-righteous ultra-leftist anger?

Better?

 

[mhaze]

Thank you.

That's what I thought. The bonuses in question had already been authorized. The bill as passed put new restrictions on the ability of companies to make such bonus arrangements in the future, but did not do anything to prevent the payment of bonuses which had already been agreed to.

The section you are quoting is from the passage in which new restrictions are being established. it is not authorizing the previously agreed bonuses; it is simply saying these particular restrictions on new bonuses do not apply to the old bonuses.

So you were rather badly spun by the people you got that talking point from. Thank you for clarifying the point by posting the passage in question.

It affirms the valid contracts in place, with whatever bonus clauses they may have - what more would one expect?

Do you have a point?

 

[BPSCG]

Those poor banking executives. All they did was do their jobs incompetently and recklessly and lose their customers' money. What kind of world is this coming to where people face consequences for being bad at their jobs?

Depends on your definition of "rightfully-earned". Meanwhile, cry me a river for the AIG employees who say, "Iit wasn't me, it was this other guy who ran the company into the ground. Give me my money."

The two of you would do well to read the link to the New York Times letter from a former AIG employee, that was provided on page 1 of this thread. He's a guy who had no part in AIG's financial troubles, and in fact made millions for the company. Now he stands to lose his bonus (probably well over half his salary) and he has state attorneys-general threatening him for the crime of... well, come to think of it, he's committed no crime.

But let's not allow innocence to stand in the way of a good lynching. Especially when it might vault a state AG into the governor's mansion.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Beeps,

Has it occurred to you that the STATE may be cleaning up where the Federal Government has simply dropped the ball? This is not uncommon in our history.

Are you aware of the original prosecution of AIG and the charges still pending against Maurice Greenburg? AIG has been under the microscope for their insurance business for quite some time.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Please don't call lefty a liberal. He is considerably more readical then mainstream liberalism.

Heh, I'm more radical than a mainstream liberal and even I don't know what he's smoking.

While we're at it, maybe it is time to get a constitutional ammendment pushed through to end the superstition of corporate personhood. There never was any such thing in the constitution and the first court case may not even have been decided as later numbskulls think it was.

When corporations are treated as people, people whom they harm suffer, because corporations have the added finacial muscle with which to defend themselves.

And how exactly does this work in reality?

 

[leftysergeant]

How much of the constitution are you really interested in violating to satisfy your self-righteous ultra-leftist anger?

Arresting anyone who does physical violence to an executive is all the protection they deserve under the constitution.

As for further violations of the constitution, I have recommended none in the passage you quote.

Corporations are not persons. Never have been, never deserve to be. The only right to which they are entitled is to own property and write contracts. Only thing they deserve or need.

If it looks like they may be doing something shady, they should be subjected to the same sort of search to which a suspected child porn dealer is subjected.

 

[Nova Land]

It affirms the valid contracts in place, with whatever bonus clauses they may have - what more would one expect?

Do you have a point?

Yes, I do. Let me try to say it more clearly.

You incorrectly stated in a prior post that "These AIG bonuses were specifically authorized in the $787B stimulus bill... [They] codified the bonuses into law. Now they have to deal with it. Now who should you get mad at? Not AIG, but the clowns who made this deal."

Because you failed to cite the passage in the bill you were referring to, it was hard to know if you were correct or not. Now that you have cited the passage, it is clear to see you were not.

The passage you cite does not "specifically authorize" the bonuses. What is does, specifically, is set restrictions on new bonuses. That is the main point of that section.

As a subsidiary point, it says that these restrictions do not apply to bonuses which were authorized prior to the passage of this bill. That is the sub-section of the bill which you quoted.

The bonuses had already been authorized. Whether the stimulus bill was passed or not, they were going to be paid.

The bill did not "specifically authorize" the payment of the previously-agreed bonuses. What it did was fail to (retro-actively) revoke the authorization.

If it were legal to do that, many people would like to have seen that done. And it may still be possible to do that. I don't know -- and the bill in question does not speak to that point.

The bill does not say that no one is permitted to find a way to revoke those bonuses. It does not say those bonuses must be paid. All the passage you were referring to does is make it clear that the particular set of new restrictions being enacted by this law does not apply retro-actively.

So if you want to get mad at the people who voted for the bill (and the people who voted against the bill) for not finding a way to revoke the bonuses, that's fine. But getting mad at them for authorizing the bonuses is foolish. Neither a vote for the bill nor a vote against the bill had any different effect on whether the bonuses were authorized.

 

[leftysergeant]

And how exactly does this work in reality?

Corporations used to be prohibited by law from making politcal donations. Some clerk at the Supreme Court diddled a record of a rulking and now people havbe the misguided notion that corporations have the same right of free speech that people do. Idiotic idea. Corporations can legally lie, even if it harms people, and they can sway elections by funding the corrupt politicians who will write the laws the corporations want.

Corporations exist only to do business. When they start to control us, it is time for them to disappear from the face of the earth.

 

[Cobalt]

Some clerk at the Supreme Court diddled a record of a rulking and now people havbe the misguided notion that corporations have the same right of free speech that people do. Idiotic idea. Corporations can legally lie, even if it harms people, and they can sway elections by funding the corrupt politicians who will write the laws the corporations want.

HINT: Corporations are made up of people. As much as you don't like it, they have rights too.

Gonna answer the post a page back, kiddo?