Something is off about the whole AIG Bonus controversy. Yeah on the surface it's in poor taste to pay bonuses to employees of a failing corporation that has received billions of taxpayer dollars. But if you look beyond the surface it'd not that big a deal.

On the dollar scale alone the $165 million AIG paid in retention bonuses is minute compared to the billions of their bail out money. Also these were not "performance" bonuses. These were rewards paid to people who stuck around to help dissolve the corporation - not exactly a job with a great career path. And having AIG Financial Products on your resume probably isn't going to do a lot for your future prospects outside the burger industry. And according to the stimulus amendment that Countrywide Chris Dodd wrote before he didn't write it, before he did, they were a contractual obligation that had to be paid.

And really, what was the whole point of bailing out AIG if not to soften the blow of their collapse by allowing them to continue to meet their obligations on the way down? And if they weren't paying people to manage the slow destruction of the company we would have gotten the collapse we were trying to avoid.

But something smells a little funny around the Dodd Amendment - and not the just BS the Friend of Angelo has been throwing around.

It's all about the timing.

Over and over we were told that the stimulus bill had to be passed as quickly as possible. It was a crisis. If we didn't get this done we might never recover.

At the 11th hour, during the House and Senate conference on the bill, the loophole grandfathering in bonuses that were contracted before the bill was signed was added to the Dodd amendment.

When Congress completed their mad dash to pass the unread behemoth, The One let it sit for days before signing.

This brings up a lot of questions.

Why the wait?

What was the date on those retention bonus contracts at AIG?

How many other TARP recipients signed bonus contracts under the wire?

Who are we not supposed to be looking at while we vent our outrage at AIG?

I'm just asking.

Posted by: T F Stern at March 20, 2009 04:27 AM (Ruh11)

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