Spring Break is over. Another St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone. President Obama got in touch with his Irish roots. That must have been invigorating.
AIG bonuses are in the news again. The idea of a retention bonus seems to presuppose some kind of value to be gained from retention, although the value in the case of AIG employees is a little hard to conceptualize. How much value to a company can employees be who engineered a two hundred billion dollar loss, unless their expertise actually depends on sucking up government bailout funding? If that’s bad for company moral, Gee Whiz, excuse me all over the place. I’m sure there are many decent human beings working for AIG who don’t deserve to be identified with unfortunate company initiatives. On the other hand, I also suspect there are plenty of homeless people who made better choices than working for a conglomerate without moral principles.
Somehow the argument of contractual obligations leaves me unimpressed. Let’s see. I work for a company that loses vast amounts of money with operations that are barely even legal. Now I want a bonus to continue working for the company? Why didn’t I think of that in previous jobs? I could be a CEO myself by now.
Just say no. If they don’t like it, let them sue. Breach is always an option. I like Cuomo’s question about where would the bonus money come from if there was no bailout. There would be no bonus money.
Let’s look at it this way. If we don’t pay out million-dollar bonuses to keep these brilliant economic yahoos employed, they could wind up panhandling for change on street corners, and considering AIG, I’m afraid it would require a whole new infrastructure program to build additional street corners, but on second thought, maybe that would help revive the economy. It could be a win-win.
Here's thinking for you.
Iffy
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