O deboche da AIG / AIG's outrage

A Seguradora AIG, American International Group, que já recebeu do governo mais de US$ 170 bilhões em dinheiro dos contribuintes, informou ao distinto público que planeja pagar cerca de US$ 165 milhões em bônus, no domingo, aos executivos do mesmo núcleo de negócios que fez a companhia entrar em colapso, anos passado. Não é incrível?

Edward M. Liddy, administrador indicado pelo governo para a AIG, argumentou que alguns bônus são necessários para segurar os executivos mais capazes. Capazes?!?

O assunto causou furor por conta da irritação do secretário Timothy Geithner com a demanda, dizendo que aquilo teri de ser "renegociado", mas a empresa alega que está obrigada a pagar os bônus por contrato. Se é assim, o governo não está obrigado a dar dinheiro público à empresa para bonificar incompetentes. Deixa quebrar!!!!

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., argued that some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives. Most skilled?!?

Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them. Oh, yes? But the governmente is not contractuallly obligated to save, one more time, AIG.

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. Mr. 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.

The payment of so much money at a company at the heart of the financial collapse that sent the broader economy into a tailspin almost certainly will fuel a popular backlash against the government’s efforts to prop up Wall Street. Past bonuses already have prompted President Obama and Congress to impose tough rules on corporate executive compensation at firms bailed out with taxpayer money.

“There are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what’s happened at A.I.G. is the most outrageous,” said Lawrence H. Summers, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, during an appearance Sunday on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “What that company did, the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching, what’s proved necessary — is outrageous.” So???????