JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 878
- 527
- 910
People shouldn't go around blaming Treasury Secretary Geithner, Senator Dodd, President Obama or his Administration for the injustice involved in these AIG employees getting this $450 million in bonuses. This situation was a catch 22 situation if you don't pay the bonuses you face a flood of breach of contract lawsuits and if you pay the bonuses the American taxpayers become outraged at using taxpayer money to pay unjust bonuses. In the future the government should say that companies getting big bailouts don't pay big bonuses no matter whether its contracturally obligated or not as a matter of principle if need be litigate the matter. Congress is talking about taxing these bonuses at ninety percent so the U.S. taxpayer doesn't get taken advantage of in this matter. But there is a more important task that Congress should do related to this matter, it should include in this tax legislation laws stating that if a business receives significant amounts of money from the U.S. government in order to stay solvent, avoid bankruptcy or because the welfare or the well-being of the business necessitate it for all employment contracts for all employees for that business, the bonus, retainer, golden parachute and the like provisions become null and void. It might not be fair and legal to apply it retroactively, but it is definately fair for all future employment contracts entered into by employees because now the employees have notice to what the law is, these provisions of law now become an express condition of every employment contract.
This whole uproar about the AIG bonuses underscores a serious practical problem with our society. American leaders don't know how to show good judgment about pay issues to top employees of a company, the media shows no balance on the issue - that is - they go for the jugular for business leaders and politicians over this issue, the American people are driven solely by emotion on this issue they are not guided by brains on this issue (that is, that some employees that get large bonuses actually earned those bonuses because of the revenue they made for their employer and their employers overall poor economic performance doesn't negate a fair pay for service for some extraordinary employees) and American politicians have no backbone on this issue it is irrelevant to them what is right on this issue they are scared to death of the American electorate on this issue. The big "your as dumb as a box of nails" lesson here for the U.S. government is that they should forget trying to inject further capital into banks to make them flush with cash so they will begin freely lending again and drive a vibrant economic recovery unless a bank needs capital to avoid failing - because our society can't deal with the collateral employee pay issues this initiative raises. Financial firms if they have a minimum amount of good sense are going to say no thanks we don't want the nightmare that attaches with the capital over employee compensation. Moreover, from the U.S. government's perspective it should not want to put balls and chains on important financial institutions which all this cloud of restricitions on pay for employees will bring a financial institution - this whole cloud will drive good people to non bailed out banks maybe even foreign ones and hedge funds for a long time it will leave these big government assisted financial insititutions hobbled and weak not a good strategy for building a strong and stable economy. The bottom line from a practical standpoint is the U.S. government should just focus on getting toxic assets off banks books, forget the increasing bank capital initiative the country will just have to live with its banks with limited capital resources for awhile the country will have to stop looking for the banking sector to be this miraculous savior for the economy - America will again have to accept there is no quick fix to their economic problems.
This whole uproar about the AIG bonuses underscores a serious practical problem with our society. American leaders don't know how to show good judgment about pay issues to top employees of a company, the media shows no balance on the issue - that is - they go for the jugular for business leaders and politicians over this issue, the American people are driven solely by emotion on this issue they are not guided by brains on this issue (that is, that some employees that get large bonuses actually earned those bonuses because of the revenue they made for their employer and their employers overall poor economic performance doesn't negate a fair pay for service for some extraordinary employees) and American politicians have no backbone on this issue it is irrelevant to them what is right on this issue they are scared to death of the American electorate on this issue. The big "your as dumb as a box of nails" lesson here for the U.S. government is that they should forget trying to inject further capital into banks to make them flush with cash so they will begin freely lending again and drive a vibrant economic recovery unless a bank needs capital to avoid failing - because our society can't deal with the collateral employee pay issues this initiative raises. Financial firms if they have a minimum amount of good sense are going to say no thanks we don't want the nightmare that attaches with the capital over employee compensation. Moreover, from the U.S. government's perspective it should not want to put balls and chains on important financial institutions which all this cloud of restricitions on pay for employees will bring a financial institution - this whole cloud will drive good people to non bailed out banks maybe even foreign ones and hedge funds for a long time it will leave these big government assisted financial insititutions hobbled and weak not a good strategy for building a strong and stable economy. The bottom line from a practical standpoint is the U.S. government should just focus on getting toxic assets off banks books, forget the increasing bank capital initiative the country will just have to live with its banks with limited capital resources for awhile the country will have to stop looking for the banking sector to be this miraculous savior for the economy - America will again have to accept there is no quick fix to their economic problems.