Now I feel a bit like a hypocrite, considering how I had just posted a piece about too much media focus on executives and their bonuses, but this is a piece of news that is just too interesting to pass up. Apparently, AIG (the "American International Group") has just given several of their top executives seven figure bonuses (read: a whole lotta money), totaling to around 165 million dollars.
(*Apparently, eleven of the people who received a bonus no longer even work for the company?)
Now, a brief history. You may or may not know this, but AIG was one of the companies that the government had spent money bailing out. Actually, the newspaper in front of me tells me that the government had spent 173.3 billion dollars to keep this company afloat. Sure it's less than 1% of the bailout the government allocated for the company, but still...165 million is alot of money.
In a way, this was also a blow to Obama himself as many are beginning to complain about his "apparent inability to block executive bonuses". At the moment, many are calling for these employees to either return the bonuses or else face a "high tax".
So, what do you think needs to be done about this?
**Woops, there was a previous blog post about this that I hadn't noticed...
2 comments:
I think that they do not need or deserve those bonuses and that they should be returned. They failed at their business which we saw when the government had to bail them out, and the bailout money, 163 million dollars or if? to them for doing WHAT? as a bonus? No, I think that is ABSURD and that they should NOT get the money.
They do not deserve the money, maybe if their company was skyrocketing back to prosperity they would rightfully deserve their bonuses, but with the current economy the way it is right now, using bailout money for the american people on yourself is just an really selfish thing to do. and should be severely punished. In my opinion, the government should take all of these executive's money and throw them right back into the economy, so that they can be made an example of.
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