90% Tax? Serves 'em right!

[Isabelle Warwicke]

From Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5JHdEyAaec4&refer=home). The House passed a measure that levies a 90% tax on bonuses paid out by companies that have received federal bail-out money.

The 328-93 House vote came amid a national outcry over $165 million AIG paid in bonuses last week after receiving $173 billion in bailout funds as part of the government’s efforts to stabilize credit markets. The President said he was “stunned” by the bonuses and vowed to recoup the money.
“Paying excessive bonuses to the same group of folks that helped get us into this crisis is simply unacceptable,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucas said in a statement. “Millions of Americans continue to struggle to get by, counting their dollars, and Congress needs to do the same.”

My favorite quote (and I never thought I would say this) came from Nacy Pelosi in a clip I heard on the Charlie Sikes Show on WTMJ 620 AM: "We want our money back and we want it now!"

Obama said in a statement that the measure “rightly reflects the outrage” among the public over bonuses, and said he hopes to receive a bill “that will serve as a strong signal to the executives who run these firms that such compensation will not be tolerated.”

:cheer: Thank Goddess for level-headdness in the White House.

[Annabella St. Clair]

Not just counting dollars, how about counting pennies and pop cans.

[daBaroness]

Hell - I wish they'd look into Bank of America. They acquired LaSalle Bank in 2007 and the former LaSalle employees got bonuses - and then promptly quit. BoA employees got squat. Now I hear they're looking into the Merrill Lynch acquisition as well.

I wasn't crazy about banks to begin with - but after working for one - I pretty much loathe them.

[Jamianne]

That's a lot nicer than I'd be. I think the lot of them should be thrown in jail for theft. That's just sickening that they get bonuses like that, paid for with the bailout money - those funds were to keep the company afloat, not to line execs pockets.

[Phoenix McHeit]

So here's my question... in all seriousness, why can't the Gov't take back the bailout funds? Basically "You can pay bonuses? Then you don't need handouts. You're gonna fail without this bailout? Then I guess you'll figure out something else to do with that bonus money"

Really - why can't they take it back?

[Ravin' Raven]

So here's my question... in all seriousness, why can't the Gov't take back the bailout funds? Basically "You can pay bonuses? Then you don't need handouts. You're gonna fail without this bailout? Then I guess you'll figure out something else to do with that bonus money"

Really - why can't they take it back?

:shame: Now Phee I thought you knew better...what you are talking about would require common sense...and effort...now we can't be having that when it come to the economic crisis and the Congress now can we? ;-)

And just for the record if I yell the same thing at the TV much longer I'm going to lose my voice....:unamused:

[Phoenix McHeit]

Seriously though - is there some sort of legality that's preventing the Gov't from taking back the bailout funds? There's gotta be, right? Otherwise it'd have happened already... right?

Honestly asking - I don't know the ins-and-outs of this thing.

[Isabelle Warwicke]

Really - why can't they take it back?

There has been an ultimatum put forth as part of the bill. If the money used for bonuses is not returned, the 90% tax stands. Geithner was aware of the bonus plan and could have stopped it before it happened.

"If you don't return it on your own, we will do it for you," echoed Chuck Schumer of New York. (Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090317/ap_on_go_co/aig_outrage))

Some banks have given some money back, like Iberiabank (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/16/eveningnews/main4870208.shtml) ($90 million), Northern Trust (http://www.theagitator.com/2009/02/28/northern-trust-gives-back-bailout-money/) (who decided they didn't need it and reworked their business strategy) and Goldman Sachs (http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/02/05/goldman-sachs-tosses-back-bailout-money.aspx)(who has vowed to pay it back).

But those banks just might be run by ethical and decent people with integrity who put the business first.

If your company is spectacularly failing, you don't get to mark it as a win when the government props you up. The thing that chaps my grits is the fact that these companies (AIG) were nearly run into the ground by unethical people at the helm and they received performance based bonuses with money that was suposed to help get them back into the game and not crash our financial system. I get performance based bonus and guess what, if I don't hit my numbers, I don't get any money. I'm glad that Congress is taking huge umbrage about this, at least we are actively seeing a little of the oversight and accountability that we were promised.

Now if they can get on top of Morgan Stanley's "Retention Payments (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/morgan_stanley_exec_announced_very_generous_retent .php)"...

[Artemisia]

Hehe, my husband called me from the doctor when he heard the beginnings of this yesterday.

Bwaha...HA....HAHAHHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHA!

:cheer: ::clappin:

[LitlePepito]

Seriously though - is there some sort of legality that's preventing the Gov't from taking back the bailout funds? There's gotta be, right? Otherwise it'd have happened already... right?

Honestly asking - I don't know the ins-and-outs of this thing.


In a way there is, there is a provision in the bill allowing for contractual bonuses offered a year ago. In other words, the contracts that were issued for hire up employees last year (they guys getting the bonuses and before the market dropped) have to still be honored. There’s also a provision to allow retention bonuses, which is what a large part of the uproar is. This was all in the bill for the bailouts, which was pushed through before anyone could really read it. It’s a huge mess that does not enamor me to the federal government. :unamused:

While I don’t think that government should be allowed to single out people for specific taxes (breach of 14th amendment) I do think that the banks, the lending institutions, all of them shouldn’t have been given the bail outs to begin with. Let them either sink or swim like the rest of society and stop trying to pull the line “their to big to go under”. The market will go through a down period and recuperate.

[Artemisia]

In a way there is, there is a provision in the bill allowing for contractual bonuses offered a year ago. In other words, the contracts that were issued for hire up employees last year (they guys getting the bonuses and before the market dropped) have to still be honored. There’s also a provision to allow retention bonuses, which is what a large part of the uproar is. This was all in the bill for the bailouts, which was pushed through before anyone could really read it. It’s a huge mess that does not enamor me to the federal government. :unamused:

While I don’t think that government should be allowed to single out people for specific taxes (breach of 14th amendment) I do think that the banks, the lending institutions, all of them shouldn’t have been given the bail outs to begin with. Let them either sink or swim like the rest of society and stop trying to pull the line “their to big to go under”. The market will go through a down period and recuperate.


Not when there are these people called lobbyists.

I'm sad that corporate responsibility has to be imposed. It does look like they are being singled out with an unfair tax. I just want to see what the contract lawyers are going to say about it.

Fat Lady ain't singing yet.

[Gellis Indigo]

Not when there are these people called lobbyists.

I'm sad that corporate responsibility has to be imposed. It does look like they are being singled out with an unfair tax. I just want to see what the contract lawyers are going to say about it.

Fat Lady ain't singing yet.


Exactly. Technically, nothing illegal was done when the bonuses were paid out. The uproar is an ethical matter, not a legal one.

[Phoenix McHeit]

Exactly. Technically, nothing illegal was done when the bonuses were paid out.

See, that's what I thought. And that's why I'm asking if they can just leave the taxing and bonus thing alone and just take back the bailout funds.

[Gellis Indigo]

See, that's what I thought. And that's why I'm asking if they can just leave the taxing and bonus thing alone and just take back the bailout funds.

Yeah. This whole "shutting the barn door after the horses are already out" tactic is what is making me uncomfortable with the whole situation. The government screwed up by not closing loopholes, not AIG. They did what they were supposed to according to contracts.

[Phoenix McHeit]

To be fair, its only this 'after-the-fact' stuff if the bonuses were kept secret. And I've heard so many conflicting stories about that, my head is spinning.
He knew
No, *he* knew
No, nobody knew
No, I told *him* and he was supposed to tell them but didn't
No, I told them and they told everybody
No, Manny's Sister's ex-boyfriend's uncle's former college roommate's cousin's ex-wife told...

Ya get the drift. ::whistle::

But I totally agree - if this was known, then this retroactive tax scheme, while imaginarily fun, is just wrong.

[Isabelle Warwicke]

When the Bailout package was first being put together, Ron Wyden D-Oregon added bonus-reduction legislation to it during the conference committee. Chris Dodd D-Connecticut had it stripped from the final bill. [NY Times] Incidentally, AIG is one of Dodd's biggest campaign contributors. *snerk* Busted.

Oh and the whole bullshit about the payment meant for retention? Yeah, 11 of the folk who got them, don't even work for the company (http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-aig-bonuses-blog18-2009mar18,0,434634.story)anymore. [LA Times]

Remember when AIG fired a guy (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/the_rise_and_fall_of_aigs_financial_products_unit. php)because he demanded his bonus payment? Yeah, the good ole days. [TPMMuckraker]

[Black Delia]

if this was known, ...

Someone wrote the original verbage
Someone typed it into a document for printing
Someone read it for spelling errors
Someone read it for gramatical mistakes

It simply isn't possible that anyone and everyone, that was supposed to be working the checks and balances at every step in the entire process, missed the fact that this was an unimaginably irresponsible, obscene, and unethical amount of money (and behavior).. did someone take the little balls out of all their whistles or what?

[LadyLaura]

When the Bailout package was first being put together, Ron Wyden D-Oregon added bonus-reduction legislation to it during the conference committee. Chris Dodd D-Connecticut had it stripped from the final bill. [NY Times] Incidentally, AIG is one of Dodd's biggest campaign contributors. *snerk* Busted.


Yeah, he's from my state. He's also in hot water over shady mortgage deals with Countrywide. He says he's going to run for office again, but the consensus here says the only running he's gonna do is on a RAIL out of town!

[Margaret]

Someone wrote the original verbage
Someone typed it into a document for printing
Someone read it for spelling errors
Someone read it for gramatical mistakes



Sure someone wrote it, but I don't think the clerks who did the typing, and the proofing could do much about it. Sure they could leak it to the press, but that would hve been a whole new round of "Who knew what."

[Gellis Indigo]

Sure someone wrote it, but I don't think the clerks who did the typing, and the proofing could do much about it. Sure they could leak it to the press, but that would hve been a whole new round of "Who knew what."

Yes, but...did no one from the President's office read it before he signed it? Or even Geitner? Did he not read it?

[Pathos]

Someone I know on another forum is arguing that this is unconstitutional. Any thoughts?



The bill has passed the House but not the Senate yet. The biggest problem with it is that it's blatantly unconstitutional. It's an ex post facto law AND a bill of attainder, both of which are explicitly banned by the Constitution.


"US Constitution Article I, Section 9: No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."



Ex post facto means "after the fact," and means Congress cannot make an action illegal and then go punish someone who committed the act prior to the new law. It's as if they banned chewing gum and then arrested everyone who had ever chewed gum. They can't pass restrictions over these bonuses after the fact, and then try to reclaim them.

Secondly, a Bill of Attainder means a law that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial. In this case, penalizing the bonus recipients with a 90% tax rate when the bonuses were handed out legally.

I'm as pissed about the bonuses as everyone else, but in this case, we got snookered. The bonuses were paid based on legal contracts signed by the employees, and so are guaranteed. Additionally, the language authorizing the bonuses was buried in the "Porkulus" Bill by Chris Dodd, though he now denies he wrote the final version of the "Dodd Amendment." The only legal way to stop the bonuses would have been if the government had let AIG go into bankruptcy so they could void the contracts. You can thank both Bush and Obama for bailing them out repeatedly instead. Finally, the bonus amounts are small change in comparison to the hundreds of billions handed out by AIG to Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and a bunch of foreign banks! The bailout's been basically a giant money-laundering operation.

All this bill does is enable the execs to take them to court, where they will be eligible to recoup double the bonus amount!

In addition, lost in all the noise, is that Fannie and Freddie are also about to pay out a bunch of bonuses, too!

[LadyLaura]

There is still a lot of debate about whether or not the AIG bonuses will have to paid out under Connecticut Wage & Hour Law. Under CT law, some bonuses are considered wages, and the double damages would be applicable, while some are not. It depends on the wording of the contract, and whether or not the bonus is tied to individual job performance/services rendered. Bonuses paid on company-wide performance are generally not considered wages. It's complicated, and it's going to take quite a while for the lawyers to figure it out.

The tax issue, I can see how retroactively imposing a tax on the bonus payments is considered unconstitutional. We have been sold a bill of goods on this one.

[Black Delia]

Sure someone wrote it, but I don't think the clerks who did the typing, and the proofing could do much about it. Sure they could leak it to the press, but that would hve been a whole new round of "Who knew what."

Maggie, dear, my further comment in that post went on to say



...anyone and everyone, that was supposed to be working the checks and balances at every step in the entire process...


Having worked for a tax and accounting firm for over 5 years, and an F.D.A. compliant organization for over 8 years, over 6 of them directly in Compliance, I know that there are whole departments (and firms) of people that are strictly set up to be a "check and balance" for more than just spelling and grammar.

Perhaps my wording wasn't expansive enough to include my thought that many many people; lawyers, accountants, and a slew of others had to sit down before and after this was all worded and written up.

...Not even a single one of them questioned it as "wrong" (morally, ethically or otherwise) or even potentially creating "the public relations fiasco" it has become?

[Bean]

Phee, the problem with taking the bail out money back is that it's probably already spent. You can't take what someone doesn't have.

[Margaret]

Maggie, dear, my further comment in that post went on to say



Having worked for a tax and accounting firm for over 5 years, and an F.D.A. compliant organization for over 8 years, over 6 of them directly in Compliance, I know that there are whole departments (and firms) of people that are strictly set up to be a "check and balance" for more than just spelling and grammar.

Perhaps my wording wasn't expansive enough to include my thought that many many people; lawyers, accountants, and a slew of others had to sit down before and after this was all worded and written up.

...Not even a single one of them questioned it as "wrong" (morally, ethically or otherwise) or even potentially creating "the public relations fiasco" it has become?


True enough honey - but I am uncertain of after the "Hey we should write this." idea do the people in power or who could actually do something about it actually see the proposal/Bill or law.

I really am not sure about that and also unsure of how much these people question the stuff they are hired to write and edit.

See what I'm saying?

[shyanwench]

Seems to me... if the goverment can take away military benefits over the years, it can deal with AIG... for the good of the country.

[Black Delia]

I see what you're saying, hun, but there 'are' people that provide corporate advise to the CEO, the Board, etc.

At the tax and accounting firm, our owner had to sit a trucking company owner client down and tell him that doing exactly what these banking firms did ..

Running the business (or 'not' running it in a fiscally responsible manner) to near bankruptcy,
then writing himself a huge bonus (that he was entitled to under his corporate documentation) but that would have totally ended the company and given him a reputation as a horrible businessman and corporate executive,
would not only have the above effects, but the IRS, the DOT, the licensing bureau and a ton of other government agencies would be crawling up his arse with a magnifying glass...

Which is pretty much what happened when I was with A.R.C. ... my job (along with the jobs of 24 other people in just 'my' office the same day) "ended" when they had to cut them because the Feds and the FDA enacted a $20,000.00 "per occurance" fine.. for something as simple as a spelling error. Two errors a day was more than my entire annual salary, and it didn't matter who made the error. It would shock you at how often a blood-donor will make an error on their record (spelling of name, date of birth, address...) and repeat it wrong four times before they leave a blood donation site.

[Ysobelle]

And if the governments takes the money back, AIG and all the other agencies and banks will fail, and we're ALL screwed.

And I don't like the idea of taxing the bonuses, either, but that's because it penalises the wrong people: the workers, not the company itself. There has to be a better way.

[Black Delia]

The House bill passed yesterday would affect employees earning more than $250,000 who received bonuses from companies that received more than $5 billion in aid from the Troubled Asset Relief Program

The House’s 90 percent tax would apply to bonus payments made after Dec. 31, 2008, and it would cease when the U.S. government’s investment in the company fell below $5 billion. The tax wouldn’t apply to any bonus returned to a company, or to commissions or fringe benefits.


The little workers aren't the ones being penalized. Its only effecting those that are pretty much considered "corporate executives" ... and most likely knew what they were taking when they got handed the checks.

[Ysobelle]

That doesn't matter. It's still the workers, not the company, who are affected most. Did they know what was going on? Yes. But they have lawyers and accountants and fail-safes. It's the companies and the corporate structure we need to go after, not the workers.

[Lady Sarah]

What bothers me about this AIG "Bonusgate" is that the people getting bonuses are reportedly part of the reason the company needed the bailout.

[Ysobelle]

What bothers me about this AIG "Bonusgate" is that the people getting bonuses are reportedly part of the reason the company needed the bailout.



Oh, I'm sure they are. Absolutely. But unless the structure is changed, there's nothing to stop them doing the same thing again.

[Black Delia]

The corporate structure is set up so that the very people that took these bonuses are the ones that made the decisions that got the company in trouble in the first place.

If they can't be fiscally responsible with their investors money, they certainly don't deserve a bonus for retention. Hell, they don't deserve to be retained.

[daBaroness]

I've got a solution. Let's just make it open season on any banker who got a bonus for 2008. Publish the names in local papers and let the SOBs take their chances with those of us who are footing the bill for their greed.

First on the list - my former boss. Although he's a mid-level manager at Bank of America - he's possibly the biggest snob I've ever met and when I saw the picture of his house in Google maps - I about shit myself.

Better yet - let's make all those SOBs have to live on unemployment for six months without any job prospects.

[Black Delia]

Although he's a mid-level manager at Bank of America - he's possibly the biggest snob I've ever met and when I saw the picture of his house in Google maps - I about shit myself.

Better yet - let's make all those SOBs have to live on unemployment for six months without any job prospects.


Not "all" of them, mind you, but about 70% of the "management" staff that I have met, have a snob meter level that is directly inverse to their actual position in the management ladder.

[Phoenix McHeit]

Phee, the problem with taking the bail out money back is that it's probably already spent. You can't take what someone doesn't have.

Tell that to the banks that are raking in the dough over bounced check fees.

;-)

I get what you're saying Bean. But if they have $ for bonuses, they have $ to use to pay back the bailout. Or at least start it.

Delia - yeah, there were many many people who looked over the whole thing - I used to work for a Financial Services Firm in Compliance, myself. But what I'm saying is, if AIG didn't tell anyone about the bonuses in the first place, who would know to put it in the paperwork at all?

[Isabelle Warwicke]

And if the governments takes the money back, AIG and all the other agencies and banks will fail, and we're ALL screwed.


But the major issue here is that the money WAS to be the assistance. It was supposed to prop them up until they could pull out of the crash. If they were going to give bonuses, they should have done it out of the coffers of the company, not the Federal Assistance monies. If there was nothing left on the company's original coffers, Guess What? You get nothing. It's unethical to use the federal money for anything other than what it was intended for.

I feel like we've been asleep at the wheel for far too long.

In other news that burns me in the wake of how unfair dsparity in the world is, I was told that the "satisfaction' numbers in my restaurant aren't exactly where they should be. I might not get to take my annual vacation in April that I have been planning for months. That's unfair.

[Black Delia]

if AIG didn't tell anyone about the bonuses in the first place, who would know to put it in the paperwork at all?

Corporate structure is regulated by both state and federal government (at least in this case, because the company received federal money in some form or another, which gives them [gov] the right to add further regulation to the state regulations required by the state in which the company incorporated).

Corporations, as a general rule are expected to drive toward the attainder of "being named on the stock market and seeking investors".... etc... (if they don't, theres really no point to becoming incorporated). The Feds and State government(s) stick their fingers into that to protect potential stockholders from just such shady dealings as these high-level CEO's and other officers have been dancing around with.

A portion of this is all dependant upon the type of corporation that is initiated, some or more highly regulated than others, but being a HUGE financial institution, they reached the point LONG ago that there is only "one" corporate option for them, they do not qualify to seek incorporation as anything else. They have too many employees, have too many assets, too many investors, and do too high a volume of monetary business to be considered for any but the most highly regulated form of corporation. Which means that their officers are held to a strict line in managing what has been entrusted to them.

Bonuses and other compensations are required to be reported to "accounting", to "the board", and "included in the annual report to investors/stockholders" at the very very least. That is a standard for large corporations when the documentation is initiated to incorporate, or when stock values/quantities change, etc. They (incorporation documents, aka Articles of Incorporation, which are a matter of public record.) lay out "corporate structure" at the highest levels, define the corporate mission, and loads of other stuff (and its really not 'that' long a document to read).

Besides, there are a slew of agencies that these people AND the corporation are suposed to be held accountable to.. agencies that OUR tax dollars fund. (not the leaast of which is the FDIC).

If I go to work and sit in my office and "pretend" to do my job.. sooner or later "someone" is going to notice. And when they do, I DESERVE to be booted out the door to go home and face my spouse, who is probably going to kick my ARSE for dragging them down the long-pipe with me, I don't care how much or how little I made.

The fact is, these people probably felt that since they were the officers, "hey, who's gonna know if I cheat just a little, I don't have a manager over 'me', I'm a corporate head". It is just another example of "the rationalization, and sense of entitlement gone wild".


No, ladies and gentlemen, a faceless and nameless "entity" did not make this mistake (using the term loosely) .. PEOPLE did.. and those PEOPLE should be held accountable for their behavior.

EDIT: I should add that when these PEOPLE "accepted" (they were not required) the position as an officer of the corporation, they were made accountable for actions taken (or misbehaviors done) while at the wheel of a publically held corp. They did so KNOWINGLY. No one forced them to sit in the big chair. If you're going to sit at the dinner table with the grownups, you ought to know how to act like one.

[erinrai]

Incidentally, AIG is one of Dodd's biggest campaign contributors. *snerk* Busted.



Right along with Obama.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7110145&page=1

[LadyLaura]

I've got a solution. Let's just make it open season on any banker who got a bonus for 2008. Publish the names in local papers and let the SOBs take their chances with those of us who are footing the bill for their greed.

First on the list - my former boss. Although he's a mid-level manager at Bank of America - he's possibly the biggest snob I've ever met and when I saw the picture of his house in Google maps - I about shit myself.

Better yet - let's make all those SOBs have to live on unemployment for six months without any job prospects.

DaB: You're sort of getting your wish, at least here in CT--


State's AIG Workers In Wilton Face Unwelcome Spotlight

By LYNN DOAN and ERIC GERSHON
The Hartford Courant
March 21, 2009
http://oads.mochila.com/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=361&campaignid=66&zoneid=65&source=mochila_live&channel_ids=,&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.courant.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2F hc-aigbonus0221.artmar21%2C0%2C7865809%2Cprint.story&cb=0fd282cfeb
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The employees of AIG Financial Products — from the secretaries to the managing directors previously enjoying quiet lives in the posh cul-de-sacs of Fairfield and Greenwich — have come under siege.

One lower-level employee at the company's Wilton offices told her friends she woke up one night this week to people knocking outside her home windows.

Doug Poling, the Financial Products executive who reportedly received the company's largest "retention payment" of $6.4 million, has a security guard stationed in the circular driveway outside his sprawling Fairfield estate — even though he agreed to return the bonus.

"People are scared," said one former employee, who has been in touch with her former co-workers in recent days.

Even as AIG remains the focus of state and federal investigations, and of debates in Congress, much of the anger is aimed broadly at the culture of bonuses on Wall Street.

But for now, the AIG employees whose division is based in Wilton are in the spotlight and, many fear, in danger.

The country's anger has poured over these workers in the last week, ever since it was announced that AIG — the insurance giant that has received more than $170 billion in government bailout money — completed $165 million in "retention pay" outlays to them last Friday.

Now that New York and Connecticut officials have some of their names and a tour bus is set to drive by some of their homes today, their personal lives are becoming even more public. CEO Edward Liddy referred to threats against them.

AIG spent Friday working with state and federal law enforcement officials to ensure the employees' safety, a person familiar with the efforts said.

Jon Green, director of Hartford-based Working Families, and his band of activists are exactly the sort of thing AIG's Wilton workers fear — indignant citizens coming after them. The organization has mounted a tour this morning that will carry a busload of people, some facing the loss of their homes, jobs and health coverage, to AIG employees' homes in Fairfield County.

It is scheduled to conclude with a rally outside AIG's Danbury Road offices in Wilton.

One neighbor of Poling's who read about the Working Families bus tour in the newspaper sarcastically said Friday, "It's going to be fun."

But Green, whose organization advocates policies to benefit the working poor and middle class, says the group's tour isn't intended to intimidate. The group has a reputation for peaceful protest and discourse, and on Friday Green backed away from the group's previous plan to hand-deliver letters to AIG bonus recipients suggesting "solutions for economic recovery and shared prosperity."

"It's not our intention to respond to that vitriol and it never has been," he said, noting that the group has been working with local police departments to ensure a "peaceful, rational, nonviolent" event.

Financial Products employees are bracing themselves for others who are less likely to come in peace. On Friday, names of some high-profile employees — and some whose identities were obscure — poured out of Connecticut's legislature, which subpoenaed the employees or former employees.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday that he had received names of those who received bonuses from AIG, and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Friday that it was only a matter of time before Connecticut officials get them too.

If they do, Blumenthal said Friday, the state's freedom of information law might compel his office to release the names publicly.

Wilton employees have been swapping comments on each other's Facebook walls about how to sneak out of work without getting mobbed. In addition to hiring security guards, workers were reportedly advised not to wear their employee badges in public.

Poling was nowhere to be seen at his two-story, white and green-trimmed home on Golden Pond Lane Friday. A plainclothes security guard sat in a black SUV parked in front of the stone path leading up to house.

A Courant reporter who approached the home was asked to leave the heavily wooded property at the end of a cul-de-sac. A soccer ball lay in the front yard, as a deer grazed on a patch of grass down the quiet street.

For now, it seemed, the Polings had found peace. But given the public outrage in the last week and the anticipated bus tour likely coming by Poling's house today, it was set to be a short-lived peace.

Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, said the growing outrage over the AIG bonuses reflects the extreme value of "fairness" in American culture.

"We're a very meritocratic society. We are thrilled that Bill Gates is as wealthy as he is — he earned it," Sonnenfeld said. "But we have an awful lot of people who didn't earn it. It wasn't their capital at risk, it was ours. …There's something very parasitic about it."

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant (http://www.courant.com/)

[Isabelle Warwicke]

"We're a very meritocratic society. We are thrilled that Bill Gates is as wealthy as he is — he earned it," Sonnenfeld said. "But we have an awful lot of people who didn't earn it. It wasn't their capital at risk, it was ours. …There's something very parasitic about it."


Well said.

[Black Delia]

I was just about to applaud the verbage too. *nods firmly*. I will be watching... and praying that level heads will rein in the "mob mentality" I sense looming on the horizon.

[LdyJhawk]

Anyone advocating physical harm to these people should honestly be disgusted with themselves. Good god I'd hoped we were past the days of shoot first, ask later.

However I DO think that the 90% tax isn't really "enough" ...so I get 3 million and then after tax I get to keep 300 grand? *shrug* Hell, 300 grand I didn't have to do shit for, YAY! They should tax it at 99%

[Phoenix McHeit]

However I DO think that the 90% tax isn't really "enough" ...so I get 3 million and then after tax I get to keep 300 grand? *shrug* Hell, 300 grand I didn't have to do shit for, YAY! They should tax it at 99%

I heard somewhere (paraphrased cuz it was a few days ago) 'We'll do 90 - we figure the state and local taxes can take care of the other 10%'

[Black Delia]

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, suggested that if the AIG executives had any integrity, they would return the $165 million in bonus money. One leading Republican even suggested they might honorably kill themselves, then said he didn't really mean it.


I missed this little tidbit the first time I read it... pot calling the kettle black, I tell ya. Polititians in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

(for the record, the slings and arrows of scorn are aimed at both sides of the aisle.)

[Margaret]

I was just about to applaud the verbage too. *nods firmly*. I will be watching... and praying that level heads will rein in the "mob mentality" I sense looming on the horizon.

I *think* it was a spot on Good Morning America that I saw this on, but people who work for AIG are nervous. The company has several divisions, many of them not having to do with anything financial but employees and offices in all of them are getting threats called in.

One of the employees of one of the insurance offices agreed to be interviewed - over the phone with their voice disguised. They are afraid and mad as hell too. They are just trying to do their jobs selling car insurance and just because they work for AIG - they are now getting police escorts from the parking lot to the building. They are just as outraged as anyone about the bonuses.

People are angry and scared. This may not bode well for someone.

[Black Delia]

Reminds me of when the union went out on strike and we had to be escorted into the Red Cross building because of slashed tires and called in bomb threats.

Those of us who could have lost our jobs because we were not a part of the union (who was forcing their workers to quibble over the difference in .70 cents an hour and .75 cents an hour raise for people that were already making the same money as middle management and had a better medical and retirement package than we did... ) were still somehow expected to back the union and stay home in support of getting upper management to capitulate on .05 cents an hour...

Thankfully we were all able to keep in the back of our minds that it was not every fellow employee who was in on the tire slashing and the bomb threats (just three very bad [the union's word was "zealous"] people).

The union rep actually made it a demand that these three people would not lose their jobs or the union would not come back. In the end, one of them was sacrificed and the other two were retained o.O ...


And we all remember "the Rodney King incident" (and various other riotous behavior involving mob mentality, including every single MSU/UM game in the last five years).... Humans need to remember a bit of "humanity" and learn from history.

[daBaroness]

DaB: You're sort of getting your wish, at least here in CT--

Anyone who would pick on a secretary of a big-wig snob needs an enema. These poor souls are tortured enough by the people they step and fetch for.

The client managers I used to work with walked a thin line between my former boss and their clients - if the millionaire (billionaire) clients knew how he'd referred to some of them just because he viewed them as Kansas City cowtown hicks and not high-class Chicago royalty (in his dreams) like him - they'd have pulled their millions and billions out of the bank and showed his snobby ass a little cowtown justice. Calling them pedestrian and hicks was one of the nicer things I heard him say.

Frankly - it's the truly wealthy people who've actually earned their money who are the nicest. The wannabe wealthy and trust fund brats are the ones who make my ass tired.

[daBaroness]

Anyone advocating physical harm to these people should honestly be disgusted with themselves. Good god I'd hoped we were past the days of shoot first, ask later.

However I DO think that the 90% tax isn't really "enough" ...so I get 3 million and then after tax I get to keep 300 grand? *shrug* Hell, 300 grand I didn't have to do shit for, YAY! They should tax it at 99%

They physical harm I'm advocating is making them live in the real world - on say, $345/week. Tell me that wouldn't hurt them! And while I'm not advocating major physical assault or permanent damage - how damned good would it feel to just be able to bitch-slap one of these fat cats?! C'mon - you know it would feel great!

[LdyJhawk]

They physical harm I'm advocating is making them live in the real world - on say, $345/week. Tell me that wouldn't hurt them! And while I'm not advocating major physical assault or permanent damage - how damned good would it feel to just be able to bitch-slap one of these fat cats?! C'mon - you know it would feel great!

My greatest hope for them is that they someday get to feel truly what their mishandling and manipulation has caused millions of others to feel. The fear of foreclosure, the threat of homelessness, joblessness, the terror of not knowing if you'll have the money for groceries..

In that? I would happily wish it upon them. But even slapping them is too much of an investment of my time. Why make my hand sting smacking shit?