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By now you heard that AIG is handing out massive bonus checks to some of its employees, the same ones that brought the company to the point of needing a bailout in the first place. Clearly you know that all this money — the bailout flow — is coming from us, taxpayer dollars. With that amount of money mismanaged over and over again, folks are outraged. What do they think, money grows on trees?
I went over to Change to Win’s website to see how they were handling the story. What I liked about their post on this was not only how they framed the issues but also offered an action that folks can do this week. I thought it was appropriate to share with you here at UnionReview.com, it is below.
Over the weekend, the news broke that bailed-out insurance company AIG was becoming the latest in a parade of financial-services firms to enrich its failed executives on the taxpayers’ dime.
The New York Times reports that AIG, recipient of more than $180 billion in bailout money, plans to give $165 million in bonuses to the very executives whose reckless behavior brought the company to ruin — and nearly took the entire global economy with it:
The payments to A.I.G.’s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company’s senior executives and 6,400 employees across the sprawling corporation. [Treasury Secretary] Geithner last week pressured A.I.G. to cut the $9.6 million going to the top 50 executives in half and tie the rest to performance…
Of all the financial institutions that have been propped up by taxpayer dollars, none has received more money than A.I.G. and none has infuriated lawmakers more with practices that policy makers have called reckless.
The bonuses will be paid to executives at A.I.G.’s financial products division, the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps that protected investors from defaults on bonds backed in many cases by subprime mortgages.
The bonus plan covers 400 employees, and the bonuses range from as little as $1,000 to as much as $6.5 million. Seven executives at the financial products unit were entitled to receive more than $3 million in bonuses.
President Obama calls AIG’s behavior an “outrage”. But this is not the first outrage the nation has suffered at the hands of the very executives who happily used public funds to save their companies from the consequences of their “leadership”. (Read through our archives, you’ll find plenty of others.)
But What Can I Do About It?
Lots of folks are angry this morning. But anger, by itself, doesn’t change anything. It’s when we channel anger into action that it can make a difference.
So, if you’re angry, here’s something you can do about it
This Thursday, thousands of people will be rallying together in cities across the country to demand that bailed-out corporations be held to account, and that government make the real changes we need to have an economy that works for everyone, not just the top 1% — including passing the
A complete list of cities and events can be found on the Day of Action’s Web site,
Don’t see your city on there yet? Sign up to organize your own Take Back the Economy rally — all the materials you need are available through the site.
This week, don’t just be angry — join the movement for a sustainable economy that works for everyone and help get this country back on the right track again.
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