Timewaster's Guide Archive

General => Everything Else => Topic started by: Eerongal on March 20, 2009, 05:34:00 PM

Title: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Eerongal on March 20, 2009, 05:34:00 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/business/20aig.html?_r=1

Apparently, the 200 billion dollar handout it got from the government wasnt enough  :-\
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Shaggy on March 20, 2009, 07:12:20 PM
Ridiculous. Just ridiculous. And they'd probably just use the $306 million to give out MORE bonuses. …
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Reaves on March 20, 2009, 09:19:46 PM
Maybe this will convince everyone not to throw money at the problem when it hits the fan...
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Eerongal on March 20, 2009, 10:48:32 PM
Ridiculous. Just ridiculous. And they'd probably just use the $306 million to give out MORE bonuses. …

to be fair, the whole bonuses thing is largely (on the scale of what's going on) minor.

they got almost 200 billion, and of it, 300 million went to employee bonuses.

which is approximately .0015% of the money they got. It's no small chunk of change, don't get me wrong, but I'm sure they wanted reward people who they felt were worth it and helped them through a rocky time. Not that I'm saying that they should be handing out bonuses due to their situation, just that in the big picture, the bonuses were chump change.

Edit: ironically, today's XKCD comic is on this very subject (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/1000_times.png)
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on March 20, 2009, 11:39:19 PM
I think that's a specious argument. The common person doesn't care what percentage it is of the total. I care how it compares to my own yearly salary and how much I pay in taxes every year.

At least 77 people got $1 million or more each. That is absolute garbage.
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Shaggy on March 20, 2009, 11:40:02 PM
That's a pretty good comic.…

Minor, ehh, ok fine; acceptable, no.
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Miyabi on March 22, 2009, 02:13:40 AM
When you make hundreds of thousands a year you don't need a random $5 million dollar bonus.  That's absurd.  You would have to REALLY try to use all of that up.  I mean you put that into a bank account you're making 100-150k a year (if you have decent interest rate).
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Shaggy on March 22, 2009, 01:55:06 PM
And the peeps said they had to give them these bonuses so they would stay at the company, but (as I'm sure you have heard on the radio) no one can think of where they would go!
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: CthulhuKefka on March 22, 2009, 05:12:04 PM
When you make hundreds of thousands a year you don't need a random $5 million dollar bonus.  That's absurd.

This is exactly 100% how I feel. It's lunacy to keep giving these useless [expletive deleted] more and more money.  >:(
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Shaggy on March 22, 2009, 05:57:55 PM
I was in NY the other day and I saw a guy wearing an AIG sweatshirt and I was just kind of…stunned.
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Reaves on March 22, 2009, 07:25:45 PM
I was in NY the other day and I saw a guy wearing an AIG sweatshirt and I was just kind of…stunned.

It probably doesn't mean he works there. I have a friend who wears a shirt with AIG on it all the time. Its actually a Manchester United shirt, but it has AIG with big letters all over it because they sponsor Manchester United.
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: Shaggy on March 22, 2009, 08:17:19 PM
I know–but why would you wear an AIG sweatshirt now, even if you don't work there?? (And yes, it definitely was the company's sweatshirt.)
Title: Re: AIG Sues government for 306 Million
Post by: SarahG on March 23, 2009, 09:08:21 PM
Charles Krauthammer has an interesting column (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031903041.html) about this.