Upon hearing the news that bailed-out insurer AIG plans to reward top executives $2.4 million in bonuses next week, SEIU's first reaction was...sheer and utter disbelief. As in, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING US. How is it possible that the same company that received the largest of all taxpayer bailouts, at a total cost of $173 billion to the American people, would decide it's a good idea to reward themselves for doing such a fantastic job of losing more money?
In a Fox News Sunday interview last month, Chamber president Thomas Donohue defended the bonuses. In his answer to interviewer Chris Wallace's question, "So are you saying if AIG wants to give million-dollar bonuses, so be it?" Donohue said:
I'm saying if -- AIG is in a lot of trouble, but I'm saying if it took the right people to fix AIG, you're going to have to pay them. Same thing right here in this network. You know, if you lost your -- you couldn't pay your very best people, I'm not sure they'd stay. They'd probably go to another network.
Never one to stand quietly on the sidelines while other financial services and business lobbies are publicly flaunting their corporate greed and lack of accountability, the Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) made a particularly striking 'contribution' earlier in the week to the recent wealth of outrageous "are you kidding me?!" behavior, in an appearance on C-Span, no less. When asked by the host what the Roundtable would support instead of Obama's Consumer Financial Protection Agency to increase consumer protection, FSR's Senior VP for Gov. Affairs Scott Talbott answered "We're not for any regulation."
While Talbott went on to then describe ways he thought the system could be enhanced, his admission confirms what we already knew: That big bank executives, credit card and financial services companies will stop at nothing [even humiliating themselves on television!] to maintain the same haphazard, practically non-existent regulation that helped tank our economy in the first place. "Even as average Americans scrimp and save, there continues to be this poisonous culture in corporate America, that says that greed and corruption and 'what's in it for me' are all acceptable," said SEIU president Andy Stern.
In spite of being crowned the "Bailout King," it seems abundantly clear that insurance giant AIG's executives are still not making business decisions with consideration as for how they would improve the lives of their new investors -- us. So SEIU is offering AIG some advice from the viewpoint of the people whose hard-earned money went to bailing them out: Halt the millions in bonuses you're seeking to give to top executives, AIG. A fundamental duty to shareholders has been violated, and it's time for both AIG and the U.S. Chamber to give up their roles as chief defenders of the broken system.
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