The New Republic

On the other hand, how narcissistic do you have to be to produce a whine like this one, louder than a 767 landing at JFK?  The idea that this guy's problems, irrespective of his individual job performance, should engender a flood of sympathy from readers seems to bring tone-deafness to a new level of expertise.

- ironyroad

March 25, 2009 at 12:17pm

Working for a major corporation myself, I ultimately do sympathize with Mr. DeSantis.  Yes, the resignation letter is self-serving and a little prissy.  But his claims have merit.  It's typical for upper management in a corporation to bumble about then allow their subordinates (usually employees on the floor) to take the fall.  Not exactly a new phenomenon.

I've seriously wondered what exactly CEOs do other than get in the way and otherwise gum up the works. Like that elderly uncle or grandfather who comes in midway through a home-improvement project, makes lots of pronouncements, changes some things, then creates hours more work undoing the changes.  

Liddy has clearly made a bigger mess of this issue.  Add this to the fact high-level (multinational) CEO's have little if any concept of how the real world works and how their employees live, and they really don't care  (reminiscent of the justified carping that dogged John McCain when he fumbled for his total number of homes).  

Liddy should never have promised anything to anybody: his employees, Congress, the public.  The first rule of PR: know when to keep your mouth shut.

- shaw-man

March 25, 2009 at 12:46pm

The attention focused on this minnow, while Great Whites are circling around the chum that is the people's Treasury, represents yet another redirect away from the Oligarchy.

Jake DeSantis is a nobody. His $724,000 post-tax proceeds for 12 months of work are trivial compared to the 1,500,000,000+ pulled in by the hedge fund managers who now, thanks to our sadsack Geithner-Obama team, are now going to receive large subsidies from the public purse for doing what they do by nature and by contractual obligation: find suckers who are willing to buy at unrealistically high prices and sell at unrealistically low ones.

And now, while our media class focuses on junior traders whose earnings amount to less than 1/2000th of what Messrs Simons, Soros et al took in, those big players have found the biggest patsy at the biggest possible poker table: a naive and foolish government counterparty with hundreds of billions of funds that it is determined to spend.

And so the Oligarchy merrily rolls on. A few years from now, we *might* learn which ex-government officials-- Spitzer, Daschle maybe, for starters-- glided noiselessly into various investment funds that made a killing arbitraging the people's Treasury. While everyone else was obsessed with the tiny fish at AIG.

- teplukhin2you

March 25, 2009 at 12:56pm

When I first read the letter this morning I thought it was satire, maybe even written by Dowd.  That a thrity something could feel absolutely no responsibility for the actions of his fellow employees at AIG is remarkable in itself, but that he believes he has earned a large bonus because he did a good job while his employer implodes and brings down the world economy with it is an indictment of not only the compensation model on Wall Street but of the people who work there.  I understand that we aren't our brothers keeper, but good grief, these folks all work for the same employer.  At the end of every sentence I could se ME ME ME.

- raylward

March 25, 2009 at 12:58pm

irony - "how narcissistic do you have to be to produce a whine like this one?"

The man's no better than he ought to be. He played by the rules that our Oligarchy set out, and now, because he's a little guy, the Oligarchy and its media enablers are yanking the ball, Lucy-like, away from him so that he will fall on his arse. While angry mobs surround his house.

Again, please spot the redirects here. The problem now lies with Geithner and Obama. They are laying the groundwork for the mother of all one-way, heads-we-win, tails-the-gov't-loses trades.

At the same time that poor saps like yours truly are seeing our health insurance premiums raised to $1300/month, our HELOC lifelines yanked back by Oligarchic banks like BOA, our families denied alternative health plan coverage because of pre-existing conditions defined arbitrarily and broadly, our mortgages deemed not eligible for refi or gov't assistance....

Silly me. I need to figure out a way to arbitrage the state. Maybe I should go into the health insurance arbitrage business. Find poor saps who will take the other side of a bad trade. Maybe I can be a mini-oligarch if I just believe in myself and in The One.

- teplukhin2you

March 25, 2009 at 1:04pm

Noam, you wrote "it's just not politically tenable for employees of the unit behind its parent company's problems to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus money." Be careful with your verbs. I would have written "it's just not politically tenable for the managers of the unit behind its parent company's problems to give their employees hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus money."

Putting aside for a moment whether or not the awarding of such bonuses is right or wrong, I believe that the overwhelming number of people on Goddess' Green Earth offered such a bonus would take it, for reasons stated by the guy in the OpEd, or for other reasons, or for no reason at all.

I certainly would. I have a family to support. They come first. The rest of you: get in line.

I realize many reading this no doubt think of themselves as better human beings than I am, for any number of reasons y'all have articulated over the many months I've been commenting. And now we have Exhibit #473: my abject willingness to cash a check withiin seconds of receiving it, in stark contrast to y'all turning up your noses at such tainted money and asserting, "Nay! This filthy lucre shall not sully my sight! Go! Take it away! I reject it!" as the women in the audience swoon and grown men give a little Reaganesque nod of the head in your direction, the faintest trace of a tear welling in their eyes.

For all of you practicing the above soliloquy as you read (again! will the pleasure never cease?) of the AIG bonuses, thank you so much for allowing me to learn of your existence--imagine how honored I am to be in your presence! Perhaps by affording you the opportunity to alert the world as per your moral superiority vis-a-vis moi, I am providing a very tiny service for my fellow humankind (nothing on the level that your mere existence provides, of course).

- williamyard

March 25, 2009 at 1:12pm

Oh dear God, the man is positively sub human.   He clearly needs his toenails ripped out with tweezers, his testacles squeezed in a vice and then to be strung up on the nearest tree.  He was a fool to ever be born, off with his head.  Remove his brains and fry them while you're at it.  Rich bastard shoulda had the decency to chose to be broke and struggle. Or at least to have a career that is pre-approved by John Q Public (oh never mind on that one - he did).

Fine. Next time it will be you. Oh, I forgot - you're too righteous for all that.

- Wandreycer1

March 25, 2009 at 1:32pm

The comments above illustrate that TNR readers - who falsely presume their own intelligence - are just as prone as any other group to mindless populist idiocy.

The fact remains that most or all of the current crop of AIG bonus recipients are not responsible for the downfall of AIG or the economy generally.  They are the clean-up crew, tasked to wind down the credit-default swap transactions and greatly reduce AIG's - and thus the American taxpayer's - liabilities.  A more courageous CEO would have pointed out this fact to the witch-burners in Congress and the media.

But, alas, Liddy turned out to be a pussy.

And his political cowardice damages not just AIG, but the American economy generally, as investors watching the populist spectacle must now assess the "political risk" of investing in this country, as it must for any banana republic.

- bcrago77

March 25, 2009 at 1:38pm

"as investors watching the populist spectacle must now assess the "political risk" of investing in this country"

The ultimate blackmail: we will take our money somewhere else! So up yours even if you don't like it! Deregulation! Low wages! Environement destruction! Privileges for the investors! The entire package!

Or we'll take our money away!

Thank God the Masters have no money to blackmail no one anymore... But it seems some want to have blackmail on taxpayers money! To think I would be alive to see this.

- luispc

March 25, 2009 at 1:48pm

I found this line telling: You and I have never met or spoken to each other. The guy was an executive VP. It just tells you have big and out of control AIG is. "But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses." I worked at a Printing company that has since gone bankrupt. I had zero to do with it going bankrupt, but had I stayed I would have been out of work. That is the nature of a business. AIG would have gone bankrupt, it was saved by the taxpayers. If my printing company was saved by the taxpayers I would not have expected a bonus, I would have been thankful just to keep my job.

Yard, I disagree with your cynicism. I know many people who choose not to go into jobs that have high pay, but choose something else. Is that not turning ones nose at cashing high checks? When I was in China I was offered some pretty highly paid positions, but I didn't go to China to get rich, (I went to China to meet hot Chinese women but that is another story). And after I got married I left China for an even lower paying job in one of Mexico's poorest states. I am not saying this makes me a better person. I truly don't like possessions because they represent more things to worry about and take care of. And I have to be honest, I know many, many people who are far more extreme than I. I know a collegue who left here to go to remote parts of Guatemala to help build composting toilets. My niece is going to Africa for Animal husbandry. Another collegue (a scientist) is going to Columbia. At least here I am safe, my bed is comfortable, I have the internet, and my pay (even though is low) is secure, as is my healthcare. What the hell am I going to do with a huge bonus check that I can't already do now?

- blackton

March 25, 2009 at 1:53pm

luispc,

I'm not giving you any money, because I don't like you, or trust you.  That's not blackmail, unless you presume you have the metaphysical right to the product of the intellectual and physical labor of your betters.

- bcrago77

March 25, 2009 at 2:05pm

What bcrago77 said.

- williamyard

March 25, 2009 at 2:09pm

bacrago, you have got to be kidding. When your job at a private company is being funded by the taxpayer, and if it had not been for the taxpayer the company would have been bankrupted, then it doesn't matter if they are the clean up crew or what have you, if your company goes bankrupt you should not expect bonuses. If it had been a bankruptcy judge who approved the payments, I would have been fine with that. Pay a clean up crew for their expertise, absolutely fine, but do it in bankruptcy court because then the parameters are clear. This is just a clusterf.

This just points up that AIG should never have been allowed to get so big that its collapse would bring down the economy. Split the f-er up. Bring back regulations. I mean, good lord Bethlehem Steel, which was once one of the worlds largest companies and existed from 1857 to 2003. And it is gone. And they were allowed to go under, even though making steel provides more true value than pushing paper. I come from that area, many relatives lost their jobs, but so be it.

I will never do business with AIG in any circumstances. People like this DeSantis have no gratitude.

This is not populist idiocy to recognize this.

And please, cut it out with the "investors" bs. The chairman of the sovereign wealth fund of China, which represents a hell of a lot more than your nickel and dime investors, sure as hell is not being deterred by this. In fact he is bargain hunting as we speak.

- blackton

March 25, 2009 at 2:11pm

Yep, fascinating. This guy--probably a nice enough guy--doesn't think of himself as part of AIG or US banking or the US economy or the children of God; he's just him, and everything he earned he wants. There's no relationship between the work he did and anything else; he does not stand on the shoulders of giants. It's all him. He says to this one "come" and he cometh, to that one "go" and he goeth.

However, he's also entitled to all this because he studied hard and worked hard. And, almost surely, because he hates the work he does and the hours he keeps so the only thing he has is his bonus and he wants it. Nobody ever got a degree in molecular biology and, after 7 years of postgraduate education, started working for $50k because they loved what they did and thought it was important. No, only he worked hard and, being unique in his effort, deserves infinite reward, in this world if not the next.

I'm actually not without a certain sympathy. As a M of the U he traded his life for this money--a lousy trade for the only life he'll have, but never mind--and having kept his part of the deal he's lost his payoff. Still, a certain irony: there's only being you can trade your soul to for riches, and as I recall deals with him rarely work out well. Sorry guy. Next time read your Marlowe.

- AlanK

March 25, 2009 at 2:16pm

Suppose I work at a firm that trades financial products firm (let's call it BIG) and my department is making lots of money. So do most of the other departments at BIG. However, there's this one department down the hall that does nothing but fill Hefty bags full of $100 bills out and throw them out the window (this is no exaggeration - based on what I read in the FT, the credit swaps division was creating losses at the rate of over $100,000 a minute). They book enormous profits for doing this, and get paid humongous bonuses. Is it reasonable for me to think I will keep earning big money at this company?

This guy went to MIT. Financial products was just a few hundred people in London. He should have known the CDS business was untenable. This guy losing his bonus makes the incentives be right: if you see something wrong going on at your company, better get your ass out of there.

- duillier

March 25, 2009 at 2:19pm

blackie, there's nothing cynical about my comment. Pragmatism is not cynicism.

I commend you and those like you who have chosen careers that pay less but result in you following your heart and helping others. I've been on both sides. I've met good people and bad people on both sides. One thing is true about all of them: my feet don't fit in their shoes and vice versa, so walking a mile in each other's moccasins is problematic at best.

I find it far easier to commend someone who performs well under pressure than to condemn someone who acts self-servingly. Just because I commend a firefighter for going into a burning building to rescue an infant doesn't mean I'd do the same thing; just because I can condemn someone for taking what some construe to be ill-gotten (if legal, contractual, promised, and by some definitions earned) doesn't mean I woulnd't act exactly the same way, given the situation. It doesn't mean I'm cynical. It just means I'm surrounded by human beings. Human beings sin (if in fact the AIG recipients are sinning; I don't think they are). It comes with the territory. That isn't cynicism. That's reality. There's nothing inherently wrong with reality! What is wrong is assigning to it characteristics it lacks, then condemning it when it fails. Every man has his price, except for the occasional martyr or saint--many of whom, IMHO, are simply fools enraptured by their own sense of righteousness.

What bothers me about this whole affair is the witch-hunting, the lack of perspective (the AIG bonus pool is chump change), the self-righteousness, the envy, the pride, the lack of integrity--and I'm not talking about the people who got the bonuses. We have media types, many of whom earn as much or more than the AIG people, the same media types who sold the country a bag of goods on Iraq, now demanding "Off with their heads!" We have some of the scummiest politicians on the planet, politicians who for years didn't have the balls to do what we hired them to do, i.e., regulate the industry that caved in on its own avarice, morphing into Mr. and Ms. High And Mighty, calling AIG on the carpet. We've got tens of millions of Americans living beyond their means and not caring to pay much attention to all those boring economists warning that the whole party was just one big house of cards, with a Nor'easter headed this way.

So, you know, we all read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Let's get the stoning out of the way for another year, shall we, so we can all go back to being the perfect little human beings we've always been and always will be.

- williamyard

March 25, 2009 at 2:22pm

bcrago, unlike much of the rest of the world, China’s economy is suffering from excess liquidity with no outlet. China could infuse as much as $300 billion into the global economy through its new sovereign wealth fund. However, experts predict that the country will continue to support its own blue-chip companies rather than invest in other nations. That’s not all bad: Some countries fear that such outside investment, especially in key industrial areas, could severely damage their security. The US blocked some key investments based on these fears.

There is about 5 trillion dollars that exists worldwide in sovereign wealth funds. Do you really think that they are so childish as to say "I don't like you, or tust you." Of course they are going to invest a nice chunk of it in the US. Many of them studied in the US. Do you really think they are going to invest it in Venezuela?

Are you really so silly to think that the people who run these funds will give the slightest rats ass about these bonuses? In fact, the Chairman of Baosteel, the worlds largest steel company did not recieve his bonus this year. And are you aware that his salary is not much over $100,000 a year?

Do you have any idea how business is played out on the global level?

- blackton

March 25, 2009 at 2:22pm

yard, thanks for the comment. my point about cynicism is your line that everyone who condemns the bonus would surely take it. Do I think these people who were offered bonuses and took them are bad? Of course not, what should have happened is that as a condition of AIG getting federal money the contracts should have been renegotiated, and then the employees could have walked or stayed. That was the clusterf.

Now lets say I being myself had somehow been working for AIG, making in excess of $250,000 (most likely much more) and I was given that bonus, would I have taken it? yes, but I would also have been more than willing to give it right back. If the American people would have been fine with me taking it, I would have, if they weren't, I would have shown my gratitude to the American people for bailing out my livelihood by giving that bonus right back.

I agree with most of what else you say except that every man has his price.

I think most people have a price they are not willing to pay. I think you yourself have a line of decency you are not willing to cross, not for anything as crass as money.

- blackton

March 25, 2009 at 2:47pm

William Y - standing ovation.

I work with angelic social workers and evil social workers.  But the very worst are those who are bitter about their pay, the fact that they went to Ivy grad schools and make less than a good waiter. Life ain't fair, which couldn't have come as a surprise on graduation day.  I get this tedious, angry despair from friends in the publishing business too - oh the world doesn't recognize my genuis so those with money I deem undeserving are wicked for not noticing the unfairness of it all and changing it. For them.

And you know what AlanK?  No, individuals doing their job in good faith certainly aren't responsible for something someone did down the hall, nor are they responsible for the overall state of finance.  They aren't even personally responsible for the prostitution ring that is DC/Wall Street.

America was enamored of a utopian fantasy for the last 20 years sold by ideolouges and demanded that it be implemented - no regulation, Greenspan is a genuis, Morning in America, no taxes, everyone gets rich if they work hard enough and are "entrepreneurial" (a word I loathe), glories of the marketplace, BMW's over VW's, glorify money, who wants to be middle class anyway, etc.

Naive, sentimental, entitled America gets off scott free, hmm?  Its just too easy to hammer one set of people with targets on their backs, lazy.  This whole thing has been predictable since November 4, 1980.

- Wandreycer1

March 25, 2009 at 2:59pm

"I'm not giving you any money, because I don't like you, or trust you.  That's not blackmail, unless you presume you have the metaphysical right to the product of the intellectual and physical labor of your betters."

I'm glad I don't want or need your money. Only God knows what I would have to do in return.

And on the issue at hand, the problem is that guys like you don't have money anymore, so they're asking for the tax payers' money in order to get their businesses going.

So it seems to me that guys like you are the ones who think that they have "the metaphysical right to the product of the intellectual and physical labor of their betters".

- luispc

March 25, 2009 at 3:09pm

luis - if business doeen't get going, you don't have squat.  I take it you make your money without relying on any other institution or business?  I take it you farm the land for your food? That's miraculous, very moral and all.

Its called lending, its been around for awhile now.  We've been borrowing tax payer money to fuel business since the country was founded.

- Wandreycer1

March 25, 2009 at 3:20pm

Dean Baker

"In reality, this plan is a way to use taxpayer dollars to get investors to pay far more than these assets are worth in order to give more money to bankrupt banks."

"There are no doubt shrewd investors who have identified certain assets that they would have been willing to buy from the banks, but they put off the purchase waiting for a deal like this. Now these investors will have the opportunity to buy these assets with large subsidies from the government, allowing them to make substantial profits."

"A second outcome is that many investors will see the subsidy and decide to dive in, recognizing that most of any potential loss will be born by the government...In these cases, the government can expect to see substantial losses, since the investors would bid more than the assets are worth, and the government would be stuck with the eventual loss."

"A third result of this path is that the subsidized class of assets would rise in value relative to assets that do not benefit from the government subsidy. This could cause banks that are relatively healthy, and therefore not taking part in this program, to suffer."

"A fourth likely outcome is that even with the subsidies, much of the toxic waste would stay on the banks’ books...It is likely that the gap between the asking price and the offer will not be closed for a large portion of these assets, even with the government subsidy. As a result, the banks are likely to still have several hundred billion of bad assets on their books even after this plan has been put in place. The Obama administration will then be forced to go to Congress with yet another bailout proposal."

"It is also worth noting that this is a situation that invites all manner of fraud since there are very large government subsidies that could be appropriated through clever schemes. The Obama administration assured the public that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will be closely monitoring the program, but the FDIC does not have the staff or the expertise to effectively track a program of this size. The situation is complicated further by the fact that many of the big actors are likely to be hedge funds and private equity funds, who are almost completely unregulated in the current environment."

What a disaster this plan is. I'm losing hope in the unity of h...

- The Ignorant Populist

March 25, 2009 at 3:20pm

Thanks for this piece Iggy.

The potential for fraud has freaked me out too. There is no question the infrastructure is not in place at this time to deal and you have to factor in the fact that people will try. Lots of them, they always do.

- Wandreycer1

March 25, 2009 at 3:44pm

"Through a web of family and social relations, propinquity and shared entertainment, campaign contributions, implicit promises of future wealth (reinforced every time a Rahm Emanuel leaves government and promptly "earns" $18 million), and the occasional demonstration of the power to destroy a career, government officeholders at all levels come to see the interests of the monied elite as being co-extensive with the interests of the public..."

That quote from some idiot conspiracy nut called Roi is a keeper.

Everyone who tries to paint genuine (And near universal it has to be said. I'm finding it hard to find ANY expert who actually rates this plan) concern over this whole mess as hyperbole or - the new anti-proism of it's day - populist, should be made write that quote out 100 times...and say two Hail Mary's and one Our Father...actually make that one Hail Mary and two Our Fathers.

- The Ignorant Populist

March 25, 2009 at 3:48pm

bravo, Dr. Samuel Yard. Or maybe Seigneur Michel de Yard. You really should copyright your stuff, y.

- teplukhin2you

March 25, 2009 at 3:56pm

What's your hubby think of the plan Wandrey?

- The Ignorant Populist

March 25, 2009 at 3:57pm

Hey Iggy, I hear the Irish banks are messed up. How goes the economy there?

- blackton

March 25, 2009 at 4:02pm

Superb discussion, all.

We are the only free people on this blog!

www.youtube.com/watch

- teplukhin2you

March 25, 2009 at 4:04pm

On the one hand, it is politically untenable to think those FP unit employees could get the bonuses.

But I was livid after reading the op-ed.  I agree this whole AIG bonus issue is a distraction but that's the point.  The media just whipped up hysteria over the $165 million bonuses, without doing any investigation of who got the money and why.  Liddy tried to explain but got shouted down by Congress.  Congress railroaded these people based on false partial evidence of what was going on.   They weren't CEOs making tens of million in inverse incentive after ruining their companies.  This guy's team made money and was trying to sell a profitable commodity business - to pay back taxpayers.  I'd be pissed too.  

I guess my disgust with half baked facts in the media and the 90% tax levied on a group of US citizens as a punitive measure by Congress (a/k/a U.S. government) far out weigh the FP unit's take.  

- CAMtwo

March 25, 2009 at 4:06pm

CAM - don't fall for the redirects. Keep your eye on the ball here. We are about to see the first tranche, so to speak, of a trillion or so in public money devoted to bribing the world's shrewdest and richest professional investors to enrich themselves. As if they needed any inducement.

At last, a truly shovel-ready project.

- teplukhin2you

March 25, 2009 at 4:14pm

Hubby thinks everyone who voted for Reagan should have a retroactive lobotomy. He's an old schooler, he still fighting that war.  

He's remains on a high state of nuetral alertness day to day. He comes home and regurgitates what happened that day and just waits to get up in the morning and do it again.

Truth be told, I think he's glad. Its intellectually stimulating in a way. He hated the excess, was effectively fired from Lehman for refusing to be a thieving unethical pig and guess what - he's the last man standing with a decent, ethical job.  You know the Scots, they like living in poverty - it makes them happy, fuels them.  He looks forward to it, damn it.  Scots, what are you going to do?  They should always have one high up in the Treasury somewhere.  Overspending is deeply outrageous to them.

He's suspicious of the plan, thinks everyone should be fired and that everyone who a) bought a house in the Hamptons, ever, should be fired laughed at AND retroactively given a lobotomy for the good of the country b) feels the need to live in anything more than 2000 feet in New York frigging city - ditto.

He makes Roi look like Geitner.

- Wandreycer1

March 25, 2009 at 4:24pm

Oh yes, I said on another thread - it is the first 60 degree day here and I'm going to take out my one cigarette a week and strut through Central Park with it.  I might even brave a smile or two.  We haven't had many of those on the streets of New York lately.

Adios for now!

- Wandreycer1

March 25, 2009 at 4:26pm

William Yard appears to be the only commenter who is bothered by witch hunts and even he can't bring himself to mention Cuomo and Blumenthal.  I am tempted to compare those two bottom dwelling slugs to Huey Long, but that would be unfair to Huey.  He actually had some accomplishments as a governor.  The better comparison may be to Joe McCarthy.

- lsernoff

March 25, 2009 at 4:26pm

"Its called lending, its been around for awhile now.  We've been borrowing tax payer money to fuel business since the country was founded."

Wandrey, I'll crosspost something here that I think addresses your question:

"I'll try to use an analogy: oil.

I have a sligtht notion that contemporary economies depend on oil. I don't like it though.

And if there is a problem of oil shortage after the oil companies have ruined themselves in casino like businesses, what will I do? Give them a trillion dollars and carte blanche to drill wherever they want and simultaneously make a speech on how the energy paradigm must change and the environment is being destroyed by absurd use of oil? Is this consistency?

Am I not forgetting what the oil companies will do with my trillion dollars and my carte blanche?  Am I not forgetting that they will drill everywhere to the point of exhaustion, simultaneously getting everyone buying their products until the moment in which there is no oil and there is no possible shift in paradigm?"

- luispc

March 25, 2009 at 4:30pm

The guy must be out of his mind. His points are all valid as long as you forget he works for a company that's insolvent save the good graces of the American public. Populist my ass, bcrago. AIG should have been allowed fail and the losses fallen to the rightful owners, not the taxpayers. That would mean "my betters" would be standing in the unemployment line where they rightfully belong.

- mpatrickhendri

March 25, 2009 at 4:32pm

Blackton - Corruption and bannana republic is thrown around these boards a lot but in our case it's actually true.

Our Fianna Fail party (the peculiar thing about Irish politics is the anti-pro treaty hangover that we inherited and the PR system, which really blurs the lines between Left and Right. Unless, you vote Labour like myself) has effectively being the property developers party, ever since Lemass, certainly Haughey who took huge sums of them. Enough to buy an Island, literally.

The two main banks - Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks actually had conservative business models, were doing nicely, didn't bust in the bad times, didn't explode in the good times. Until Anglo Irish Bank got new mgt. Anglo was a very small, nearly dead bank until the new board broke all the rules and basically went after the property developers, any developer, and threw silly money and crucially equity at them.

Anglo exploded in growth and put major pressure on the two main banks to keep up the ROI, which they could only do by compromising their risk models. Queue property bubble and massive profits for all three banks. When the bubble burst, the main shareholders in Anglo were the property developers who borrowed massively to buy land that was now worth a tenth of the loan. The way Anglo got around this was by giving huge loans to the main shareholders, who were also the main debtors, who then bought Anglo shares, which helped keep the shareprice from collapsing...for a while. This scam was eventually revealed and the fraud squad raided the offices last month.

Meanwhile, BOI and AIB were left with these huge bad loans backed by land that was worth a fraction of it's value, simply because the "logic" of the market forced them to keep up with the now bankrupt and fraudulant Anglo. This is what happens when the magic of the marketplace is applied to monopolies.

So, now the government had to ensure all bank deposits to keep the economy from going under and thereby pissing off and already pissed off (over our "ungrateful" No vote) Paris/Berlin.

It's a mess. What's of more concern is the government deficit, which was largely created by giving infuckingsane wage increases to public servants on the back of stamp duty from the bubble. Yes, they promised FOR LIFE increases on the back of a cyclical income. If you won 1000 quid on the lotto tomorrow Black would you get a bigger mortgage?

The govt finances are in the shits, the unions are rediscovering Connolly and are planning a general strike Monday, which means I have to cut short a trip to London.

So, the private sector is on it's knees, the public sector are on strike, the govt finances are fucked and it's all down to...guess what? Property. Property. Property. Sounds familiar doesn't it.

Sometimes, I think property bubbles are the source of all evil.

Any lecturing jobs in Mexico?

- The Ignorant Populist

March 25, 2009 at 4:33pm

Your hubby's a wise man Jill. Good for him. I have a few Scottish friends, your description sounds spot on.

- The Ignorant Populist

March 25, 2009 at 4:35pm

We're slightly better Iggy. Perhaps because we had a Finance Minister in 2002-2003 that has putten a halt to this development system based on "credit and illusions" (her words), demanding "budget discipline".

Consequently, we suffered the house crisis in 2002-2003 and now only two minor banks (crooks, they deserved it) went bust. The last 5-6 years have been of permanent crisis, but at least of no illusions...

That Finance Minister is current leader of the opposition: look at her nasty face. But I'm considering giving her my vote her even if she is a right-winger and insanely unfriendly:

Look at her:

www.youtube.com/watch

- luispc

March 25, 2009 at 4:59pm

I grasp the yardster's philosophical vantage point, but what I don't understand is the need to defend the whiny narcissism that emerges from  this guy's op-ed.  In fact, I'm speculating about the conversation in the NYT editorial offices.  Did the opinion page editor look up from the phone and say wonderingly: "I don't believe it, he's actually going to do the piece."  And then his assistant says "It's going to be like, you're just about to be burned at the stake and you start making an issue about how they are only using regular gasoline and you deserve better."

I echo raylward in that I almost believed this was a satirical piece when I read it first.  The fact the the guy doesn't seem, even now, to realize that he was involved with a dangerous and potentially disastrous business model that had been deregulated in a Congressional couip more or less under cover of darkness screams from every line.  As does, indeed, the impression is that he is entirely and exclusively concerned to establish two things which he believes are of supreme national importance:  (a) he didn't do anything wrong, and (b) he wants his money that he earned, dammit!  While bill is right to point out that it's an ugly but predictable human trait to see virtue in oneself and one's kind, and vice in members of the group that's currently unpopular, nobody forced this guy to go public.

If you do a piece of writing for publication, people will read it and judge it.  And it may reveal more than you think it will.  And the degree of narcissism you bring to the table will make you more or less unable to see that.  This guy is wearing blinders that would fit Seabiscuit.

- ironyroad

March 25, 2009 at 5:00pm

Louis - for some reason youtube won't work for me tonight. There's a lot to be said for budget discipline, as long as you apply it at the top of the growth curve. That's the trick.

- The Ignorant Populist

March 25, 2009 at 5:42pm

"There's a lot to be said for budget discipline, as long as you apply it at the top of the growth curve. "

OK OK you're right. But before this Geithner disaster I'll shoot at everything that moves...

- luispc

March 25, 2009 at 6:01pm

hey Iggy, now that you mention it, yes. If you want a job and you have a degree I can get you in.

- blackton

March 25, 2009 at 6:59pm

I have a first class masters from one of the top ten business schools in Europe Blackton and over 10 years in ICT, plus I read TNR. I shall sleep tonight dreaming of that Mexican beech.

- The Ignorant Populist

March 25, 2009 at 7:07pm

I think it's great Jake DeSantis resigned. His letter is perfect example why these people should get NOTHING, NO BONUS. Bonus?! When his company is  failure?! When you actually have a salary? Get lost, DeSantis, the sooner you leave the better.

- sleepyavl

March 25, 2009 at 7:50pm

AlanK says:

"Nobody ever got a degree in molecular biology and, after 7 years of postgraduate education, started working for $50k because they loved what they did and thought it was important."

AlanK, for you information, in that situation you don't start at $ 50K. You start at $ 35K. Ivy League PhD and all. Trust me on that one.

- sleepyavl

March 25, 2009 at 7:56pm

Sometimes what we intend to do bares little resemblance to what actually happens instead.

Should we then be judged more for our intentions...or for the unintended consequences that unfold instead?

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Maybe. But wouldn't you rather have someone intent on doing you some good than doing you harm?

Unfortunately, there is never a short supply of selfish bastards in today's world who do not think of others at all....whatever their intentions were, whatever the consequences of their behaviors are.

In fact, in America today, narcissism and solipsism have combined to create a whole new kind of personality.

Conventional selfishness is still rampant, sure, but it has now been supplanted by what I like to call pathological selfishness.

The conventionally selfish are those folks who choose to behave in ways they will acknowledge as selfish: "I want to do this and I don't care if others do not want me to."

With the pathologically selfish, on the other hand, other folks do not even enter into the picture at all: "I want to do this so I'll do it." Period. Only after they act and others bring the damaging consequences to their attention are the interests of others acknowledged at all.

In this way, pathological selfishness can be particularly insidous. Unlike with the conventionally selfish...where blame can be more readily affixed and acknolwedged....the pathologically selffish view consequences only as "good" or "bad".

For them.  End of story.

They simply refuse to see the rest of us at all.

And if that doesn't encompass big chunks of today's economic quagmire, few things will encompass more.

george walton

- iambiguous

March 25, 2009 at 10:21pm

If anyone if still reading this thread, certainly I've been convinced that my prior statement warning that investors might not continue to put money into America because of political risk was tenuous at best - and likely just false.

Can't win 'em all.

- bcrago77

March 25, 2009 at 10:52pm

Okay, so this guy's not a villain.  He didn't swindle anyone out of $50 billion, or do foolish things that destroyed companies.  And I'm sure he works hard and is smart.  For that he's ENTITLED to 3/4 of a million bucks?  Boy have our standards dropped.  

Look dude: there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country smarter and harder working than you, who are lucky to make a tenth of that.  So even if you're contract says X and Y, and you jump through the hoops and don't commit any crimes, and your boss is mean, just DON'T come running to me for sympathy when you don't get your year-end bonus that could have bought houses -- cash -- for five families that are now living in shantytowns (see tomorrow's Times for that one).  Instead, try to gain a little perspective.  

- gwolfjr

March 25, 2009 at 11:42pm

Truly a pleasure reading these comments.

Why such thoughtful discourse isn't taking place in the media at large is another matter.   But I'll save the complaints for another day.   Thank you all for sharing.  

- citizenghost

March 26, 2009 at 7:55am

Many of you writing on this post, possibly including Noam the original writer, seem to be unhinged from reality.

Let us assume that YOU, you personally, were possessed of a skill required by a company which was being bailed out by the government for billions of dollars.

Let us assume that because your skill was so valuable to the marketplace, that you had a personal choice NOT to work for this company in bailout.

Let us assume that because the company was in bailout, in order to coax you to work for this deeply insecure company and help the company to achieve its GOVERNMENT-ESTABLISHED business objectives, the company offered you a legal contract guaranteeing a level of payment that made it worthwhile to you to turn down other opportunities in the job market.

And, to boot, let us assume that given the social crisis involved, that the company asked you to work for $1, on the principle that eventually you would be paid a "bonus" according to aforesaid contract.

You had a choice, but you did the right thing and helped the company, and now you are being crucified.

Guys, you need to let go of your anger.  In the real world, people are paid more than you and I.  It sucks, it's life.  If you are that juvenile, be bitter if you need to, but I for one will not participate in the stonings.

- dcwood10

March 26, 2009 at 10:49am

Huh?  The gentleman writes an op-ed piece about his unfortunate situation and, presumably not under duress, has it published in the New York TImes.  The piece reveals the writer to be -- even if all the above were true -- a narcissistic whiner.  Some people note that, and say so.  That's "stoning"?

- ironyroad

March 26, 2009 at 11:01am

What seems lost in any criticism of this man is that the guy doesn't have to work for AIG, he's not a slave, he was persuaded to exercise his free choice and work for AIG when he could have done something else, something for which he would have been paid, very well, and blissfully ignored.  

We see people writing as if he owed it to the American public to do this work.

He didn't.

He chose to work for AIG, to do work that our elected representatives have deeded essential, else they would not have bailed it out with our money.

For that, he is tarred and featured.  Minimize it and say he's "whining" if you want.  Bottom line is that he did nothing wrong and if we are to achieve the government's objectives with AIG we need people like him.  

He worked in good faith.  The government and AIG both have not worked in good faith.  He has a legitimate grievance, to raise that grievance is not to "whine".  

Oddly, we seem ready to forget that the net bottom line here is that he's keeping nothing for his work with AIG.

All of this seems to me like sour grapes.  The d@mn bastard took our reason to throw a great big collective public hissy fit and showed it to be a lot of hot air, and we're mad, so we're going to call him a "whiner".

- dcwood10

March 26, 2009 at 11:34am

"We see people writing as if he owed it to the American public to do this work."

And we see him writing as if we owed him because he does this work.

- ironyroad

March 26, 2009 at 11:59am

"And we see him writing as if we owed him because he does this work."

What is really interesting is that people seem to be wildly incapable of applying the "do unto others" test as a basis of good policy formation.

The government - and the taxpayers, need certain people to carry out certain job tasks.  Due to the nature of their skills as very narrow technical specializations their salaries are unusually high.

They don't have to work for the government, or for a company doing business that concerns the government, they can take their skills elsewhere.

If we don't get people who are willing to do that work, we will not achieve our objectives.  Congress decided that we have these objectives.  If you don't like that, beat up on Congress, but don't beat up on the people who help Congress fulfill its objectives.

The government, meanwhile, has loudly and clearly sent a message: "if you are highly compensated and you are doing work that we need you to do and which we agreed to pay you a lot to do both because it is so specialized and because people are afraid to work for us, AND if some political snafu occurs and the mere appearance of impropriety exists, then we will tar and feather you and lay you out to dry."

Who is going to work under these conditions?  Anyone here?  Anyone posting?  

If we need the work, we have to pay for it.  If we think that it is such a crime that people could be paid so highly for work that nobody should be so paid, then we'll roost in our own poop.  No one will do the work.

People don't go into quantitative finance in mass because (1) the education is expensive (2) the requirements to get in the programs limit applicants to an elite group and (3) the primary aptitude one needs for success is a high tolerance for boredom.

We chose other fields for ourselves.  The fields we chose aren't as expensive to educate.  They're educational programs are not as selective.  The work itself isn't as boring.  Ergo, we get paid less.  They get paid more.  

More smart people will go into molecular biology - or you name it - because there is some intangible value to it that makes the lower salary worthwhile.

There is no intangible value to quantitative finance that makes it worthwhile, and meanwhile it is really, really hard and really, really boring.

So they are paid more, tough cookies.  Don't like it?  Clearly it is your perogative to try and leverage public rage to compell the government to cause them to be paid less, but odds are, people will stop going into these skill areas.  

- dcwood10

March 26, 2009 at 12:55pm

dcwood: save it.  Ex-banker here, walked the walk, know what I'm talking about.  If your company has a bad year and you don't get the bonus you think you deserve (and *everybody* thinks they deserve it), you can grouse, you can call your boss mean names, you can even walk.  But it takes some pretty big stones to write a freakin letter to the NYT editor claiming you're Mother Theresa.  I know many, many people in the same boat, and you know what they are doing?  Sucking it up.  They know they're overpaid.  And when they judge that the BS is finally beginning to outweigh the money (as apparently happened to this guy here), they leave.  Odds are strong that he did not walk into another job on the same financial terms, or if he did, he's one of the lucky few.  

Look, did this guy get a raw deal?  Sure.  Employment contract broached?  Tell it to a GM worker.  Savings tied up in now-worthless company stock?  That sucks, but let me introduce you to about 200,000 people from Citi and Wamu (and countless other bankrupt firms) that had even less to do with their firms' failure -- and had much, much less to fall back on.  Unfairly vilified by elected officials?  Well he's got a legitimate beef there, but come on, it's not like he spent 20 years in an Illinois prison for a rape he didn't commit.  If your biggest risk is TV crews in your big winding Greenwich driveway, count your blessings.  

- gwolfjr

March 26, 2009 at 1:08pm

Posting mystery indeed Roi. I managed to read your post and now it vanished.

Anyway it was great.

- luispc

March 26, 2009 at 1:13pm

And yes, in fact I can give you the contact info for lots of people who would gladly take that job, and do it damn well, for a lot less than $750mm.  

(broached = breached)

- gwolfjr

March 26, 2009 at 1:13pm

I didn't see whining anywhere Irony. I took his letter pretty literally, as in taking his boss to task for being a duplicitious dishonest pussy rather than standing up for his employees - who are working round the clock in good faith to fix problems they never created - under contracts the boss signed months ago.

I think having the Attorney General of New York - its most powerful legal officer, the press, spineless politicans get up and feed the mobs with irresponsible chest pounding at the expense of his sense of safety and that of his family -  is something worth lashing out at.  It was one of the most disgraceful series of events I have ever witnessed, and not by the people taking bonuses.  

I think fighting back from irresponsible public officials, calling his boss on his lies and educating an ignorant public was worth getting more class envy thrown at him.  If that's whining, sign me up.

- Wandreycer1

March 26, 2009 at 1:17pm

"And we see him writing as if we owed him because he does this work."

Please name the passage where you find this.

- Wandreycer1

March 26, 2009 at 1:18pm

Second citizenhost; good discussion.

- williamyard

March 26, 2009 at 1:24pm

gwolfjr, awesome.

- blackton

March 26, 2009 at 1:29pm

You think you can find someone else to do the work for what you deem to be a reasonable salary?  Go ahead, you go ahead and bet the $180 billion taxpayer dollars we've spent trying to restore AIG to health.  Reality and pride don't always agree, but where they differ, reality will win.

They say a broken clock is still correct two times a day, and so to can it be with the good people at the National Review.  Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation writes here (article.nationalreview.com):

"If Congress wants to drive out all the AIG employees who have the experience and knowledge necessary to help the company recover, it has come up with a good plan. By threatening to confiscate $165 million in AIG bonuses, Congress is apparently trying to guarantee that U.S. taxpayers never recover their $150 billion investment.

"It is understandable that Americans are outraged by the use of public funds to pay executives at a failing institution. But they should be less outraged about the narrow issue of bonuses and more outraged about the fact that public money is being spent to prop up failing institutions in the first place. The AIG bonuses represent contractually defined deferred compensation. They are providing incentives for top company officials to continue the work that is necessary for taxpayers to see a return on at least some of the money they poured into AIG. There is no receiver to determine whether the bonuses were justified.

"There is an old proverb about a battle being lost for want of a nail. In this case, our battle to get back $150 billion of taxpayer dollars may be lost because of misplaced anger over one-tenth of one percent of that amount. The mob mentality currently gripping Washington is irresponsible, unreasonable, and short-sighted."

- dcwood10

March 26, 2009 at 1:29pm

Tell it to a GM worker?  These sorts of non-sequiter comparsions feed the classism and ignorance of exactly what is happening.  

The GM worker is also welcome to have his or her say in whatever way they choose - especially if their family is frightened by death threats and demonization for things they have no control over.  I"m sure some would say they are whining too, which would also be ridiculous.  Its that same bullshit that people aren't allowed to suffer if they make too much money or in a way that some nebulous populace out there deems unworthy.  What a load.

Some people are bankers and some people are GM workers - its not any bankers job to fix income inequality or even to give the first shit about it.  Their job is to make money and its DC job to tightly regulate the oldest and most predicatble process known to man: greed.  "Unfairness" doesn't figure in there anywhere nor should it.  Take away the cops and prisons and SHOCK.  Crime will take over.  I have no sympathy for people who thought crooks would police themselves or change morals because they care about unfairness in the world, please.

I'm in a Wall Street family impacted a great deal right now, BTW.  I'm also a social worker who sees alot of real injustice and unfairness every day.  I make no distinction on who is allowed to suffer and who isn't.  If a press crew ever showed up in my driveway for no reason and frightened my kids, I'd aim the nearest shotgun at each of them.  And I find the AG and slap him across the face.  The prison time would be worth the satisfaction.

- Wandreycer1

March 26, 2009 at 1:30pm

More good stuff.

The following from Loews Corp. CEO James Tisch. Loews is a majority owner of insurer CNA Financial Corp. ...

"'It’s helped CNA, but it disappoints me as a taxpayer,' Tisch said in a Bloomberg Television interview. 'It should have been much more difficult for us to compete against AIG, but the reality is, I think it’s become dramatically easier. And that’s because Congress has made such a stink over compensation.'"

Full article here: www.bloomberg.com/.../news.

I really wish we didn't bail out AIG.  I think we on this posting-list could enumerate 5-10 better ideas than the bailout than used public money this way, and one reason the bailout was such a poor idea is the plain likelihood that a mob-rule situation might so easily arise and cause us to lose our massive public investment.

Led by Congress we have encircled AIG and shot.  The horse is probably dead but for the occasional twitch.  $150 billion or more, lost.

There is a real need to carry out longitudinal policy reforms that will steer more money away from the top and towards the center.  I am all about that.  But the furor over the bonuses, which in Disantis' case appear to have been his entire compensation (now forgone), may be that on this totallly separate issue from executive compensation, the bailout, we will lose everything.

- dcwood10

March 26, 2009 at 1:55pm

One must not confuse healthy reaction against SYSTEMIC violence with evil reaction against CONCRETE PEOPLE that builted their lives around a set of rules.

That is the problem here. And that is why it is sooooooo fucking important to think abstractly about normative systems, about rules and their morality.

After the rules have been defined, folks will inevitably perform the roles those rules ascribe them (they have to raise a family, pay for shelter and food, etc., and they will do it on the existent conditions) and it is not fair to react against them when the system reveals to be an extremely violent and unfair one...

To confuse the systemic and the individual plans has led to the unacceptable murdering of many innocents through History... To repeat the same mistake is completely unacceptable...

And it is because one does not want the systemic violence to be fueled that one reacts so deeply against things such as the Geithner plan... Not wishing, though, to watch public outbursts of fury against individuals and their families. Outbursts that are not (and never were) acceptable by any standards.

In a nutshell: reaction should be pointed at systemic violence and it's sources (things such as the Paulson plan and the Geithner plans) and not at individuals. These latest ones are as guilty as any of us when they lived under a system and played by it's rules. They must not be scapegoated. On the contrary: their talents and abilities should be welcomed on another system...

(one the reasons I deeply dislike  Obama and his Administration is because, in it's totally fake idealism, it completely subverts priorities: it allows for violence to be channeled at individuals while fueling the systemic violence through disasters such as the Geithner plan...)

- luispc

March 26, 2009 at 2:09pm

Iggy - take me too!

- Wandreycer1

March 26, 2009 at 2:11pm

See, you could think about this in a couple of different ways, but I can't see any way this guy comes out looking like a hero.  One, he got a raw deal, but everybody's got a sob story these days and he's in a lot better shape than most; sending his story to the NYT and pleading for sympathy just shows an astounding lack of perspective.  

But okay, you say, perspective is not his responsibility.  His responsibility is to get all he can get while the getting is good, and it's our responsibility to make sure he doesn't walk off with the store.  (Not a happy view of capitalism, by the way.  Bernie Madoff?  Just tryin' to get paid.  Greed is good.)  To which I respond (again): there are hundreds of highly qualified people out there right now, either unemployed or treading water, who would be happy to take this job at a fraction of what this guy was making.  The finance business is in the toilet, remember?  Seriously, if "unfairness" has nothing to do with it, f*ck this guy and feed him fish.  

- gwolfjr

March 26, 2009 at 2:11pm

Bernie Madoff was absolutely the fault of the American people allowing themselves to be fooled in to thinking regulation was Stalinism.  Its hard to feel sympathy for such utopianism, although I do for the individuals stolen from - they were disgracefully betrayed by the American government.  

Christopher Cox should give his entire salary back for the last eight years, he was criminally and willfully negligent because he felt his smug moronic ideology trumped history. But he was only the face of a huge toxic lie that had been festering since November 4, 1980 with entirely predicatable results.

Seriously, what exactly is it going to take for the naitivity, laziness and immaturity of the political culture and the citizens who enabled it to be held accountable?  I think the American public is way ahead of all of us on this.  If Obama wants to park a financial policeman at every Wall Streeters desk (fine by me) I'm sure he'd have no problem getting the American people to support it.  Rush Limbaugh's 16% approval rating means something too.  

As far as the guy in he letter making too much - he agreed and most people in his industry do too.  Wonder what he was supposed to do about that over his career while he was busy working his ass off.  We pay movie stars and athletes too much too, life aint fair.  Guess that's why every charity in New York is going totally broke right now.  Wall St supported them all between 80% and 90% - including required staff volunteering in some firms, the firms go bye-bye so do those funds.  Yes its the least they can do, but its not like they do it because they think anyone will suddenlly see them as humans rather than sources of class envy.  They do it because they can and should.  Its a yin and yang world out there.

- Wandreycer1

March 26, 2009 at 2:31pm

Look -- personally, in as far as it goes, I think the bonus brouhaha is a complete diversion and I don't like the idea of targeted punitive tax laws to put right admin mistakes that should have been seen in advance.

What I was responding to was what I, as an individual reader, perceived to be a whiny narcissistic tone in the original piece in the NYT.  It's all about him.  Some people don't see that, ok.  And there is a legitimate case to be made for the honoring of contracts and treating employees -- even senior management -- decently.

Ok.  But this individual worked at a reasonably high level in a division of AIG that (a) with complete recklessness brought us to the dangerous place we are in today and (b) helped AIG lose more money in fall 2008 than any corporation in history.  In a different world, if "terrorism" included negligent damage to the national economy caused by utter greed Mr Whateverhisnameis might find that publicity over bonuses would be the least of his problems.

The damage was not necessarily his fault.  But, equally, nobody asked him to go public.  Maybe a different writer with a broader awareness could have made the same case a little more deftly.  But it was him, and I don't know but that if you publish your resignation letter as an op-ed in a national paper, people are going to respond, and it may not be so positive -- you discover just how limited your world view is in those circumstances.  He lost something he'd like to have kept.  So have others.

- ironyroad

March 26, 2009 at 6:02pm

Wandreycer1:  Love your spirit!  So much of this bonus hoo-haw is hogwash.  Most people are paid an hourly wage or a salary.  They have trouble grasping a compensation system  that pays a small "base" and then provides the rest of the compensation at year's end based on the performance of the business and the individual.  They don't seem to recognize that the worker who is paid on a bonus system, is reliant on the banks to finance much of his family's expenses during the year.  If a "bonus" comes, much of it goes to paying the year's borrowings.  Of course, such a system can be corrupted --guaranteed income regardless of the business's or individual performance -- but this is not the norm.

Beyond the form of compensation, many of the above comments reflect the notion that the amount of compensation is out of whack.  At bottom, this is generally a cri du coeur that the commenter's labors are under-valued and the financier's labors are over-valued.  No doubt this happens from time to time, but watch the kids.  Occupational choices tend to rise and fall in favor depending on how they are perceived to be compensated.  

Of one thing I feel certain, the Cuomos and Blumenthals of the world will add nothing to the quality of anyone's life.

- lsernoff

March 27, 2009 at 9:58am

"Of course, such a system can be corrupted --guaranteed income regardless of the business's or individual performance -- but this is not the norm."

It was, however, the case at AIG, as it posted the biggest corporate quarterly losses in the history of the universe.

- ironyroad

March 27, 2009 at 4:10pm