Americans are deeply disturbed that their taxpayer dollars are being handed over to American International Group to give out bonuses that are owed.
AIG was bailed out with $170 billion at first and then received an additional $30 billion on top of the original amount. After receiving the bailout money, they were told to pay up.
The government was hoping that the insurance giant would use the bailout money to put some type of surge of loaning back into the economy.
AIG gave out tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses to workers. The company is legally and contractually bound to pay executives their bonuses.
They are paying out the bonuses to meet a deadline given to them, but the insurance group agreed to administration wishes to restrain future payments.
When AIG received the money, there wasn’t a contract or paper saying that they had to use it for this or use it for that. There was no definition of what they could use it for, so they used it for bonuses they owed.
The executives of AIG also have contracts with the company. The executives’ contracts say that they will be given a certain amount of pay with benefits and bonuses on top.
Should AIG be allowed to do this? The country is in turmoil and people are losing their jobs left and right. Shouldn’t we be stimulating the economy with that money?
Aren’t the executives and workers just going to save it and put it away? What is that stimulating?
I understand that legally and contractually they are bound to give their workers their bonuses. I get that. But is anyone going to check into this and make sure these are bonuses that should be given out?
Believe me, I want the workers to receive their bonuses and pay because they probably did earn it, but not at the taxpayer’s cost.
The government should be stepping in and telling them that this isn’t allowed, but I guess it’s too late at this point since they’ve given millions of it out already.
All these big companies that are needing bailing out are hush hush about the situations they are in, but isn’t it their fault that they are in the situation? Being conscious of your surroundings was one thing I was taught growing up. Don’t be so free with giving away your money.
Pay attention and use the company’s money where the company needs it most.
AIG needs its best people to keep its healthy businesses profitable until it can sell them and the company will have to sell 65 percent of its businesses to repay its federal loan and get back on track.
The stimulus bill and stimulus money is to stimulate the economy, not to pay people their bonuses.
The insurance giant needs to get their heads on straight and focus on saving their company instead of bailing out their employees and executives that may not need so much money.
