AIG paying (un-) trained monkeys

Have you heard the other good news? AIG, which has so far received more than $170 BILLION of taxpayer dollars, has plans to pay out $165 million in bonuses to the very executives that got them to this dance. How sweet; how criminally sweet.

They’re trying to argue that the bonuses are contractually obligated, from signed contracts that originated in early 2008, before they completely melted to the core like a Hotwheel® over a flame. And of course, the ‘bob is highly upset over this. I even have a fitting analogy ready for it!

But before we get to the analogy, let’s just quickly dissect how they’re NOT legally obligated to pay these bonuses, as far as I’m concerned. Yeah I understand there’s a contract in place, but just for the hell of it, let’s go back in time a little. To around the time AIG was on the verge of becoming insolvent. Now let’s examine the situation. Some smart executives decide to play games with people’s money, and it backfires horribly. They do so bad a job, that they drive their company to ruin; AIG can no longer function under its own business plan. The Government has to give them $85 BILLION just to make it a few more months, at which time they need even more capital, and then more again to the tune of $170 BILLION total to date.

My main argument that these bonuses are not legal stem from that fact that most senses, AIG ceased to exist. Basically, we came in and picked them up out of the gutter for the sole purpose of keeping everyone else from suffering horrendous blows to their capital. At that point (or this one, take your pick), they stopped being AIG, and you can’t enforce a contract to a party that no longer exists. There’s still three letters arranged in a a particular order on the side of a building, but it’s not AIG in the old sense; it’s just a banner over the real company’s name: The United States Taxpayers Insurance Company.

And now here’s the analogy:

It’s like a little kid – we’ll call him Little Johnny – out with its parents at the zoo. he asks mommy & daddy if he can have a cookie when they get home, and mommy & daddy say yes. But then a few hours later, they’re looking at the bonobos and Little Johnny pulls out a pipe bomb he had stuffed in his pants and shoves it up some poor bonobo’s ass and blows it into a million, blood-drenched, furry pieces. Now this wasn’t just some bonobo off the street, it was a hard-working bonobo that was the breadwinner for a family of 4 and now that family will most likely be out on the street! Well then, after the parents have to deal with the cops over Lil’ Johnny’s actions, the the zoo staff, and have to agree to pay to keep the poor bonobo family from eating out of trash cans, when they get home Johnny asks for that cookie, and says “you promised, remember!”

Yeah f*cking right. You’re grounded for LIFE, you little sh!t. You’re lucky to be alive.

How’s that for an analogy? I mean, if you run a company out of existence, then I think that maybe you shouldn’t get a cookie.