Citigroup Joins AIG in Paying Bailout Bonuses to Top Executives

Tina, thank you for sharing this.

While this comment references AIG I believe it is germaine to your story -

Last night on the radio (some NPR station or another) I was listening to a Senate questioning of Mr. Liddy, AIG's CEO by Barney Frank and others. When Frank stated that he wanted the list of bonus recipients made public and said the Senate could simply supoena it if it were not freely given.

Liddy's reply showed that he and his fellows finally knew what was at stake. He refused the request, reading two letters the company had received (not sure if they were e- or snail mail) from angry people who threatened to kill executives if their names were found out.

All I could think is "well what the hell did you clown-shoe wearing bastards expect?" If builders had built buildings the way these fools built investment opportunities the first termite down the plank would have laid waste to Chicago.

I do not believe the shock these people are showing is feigned - they likely are really scared. But they are stupid. They are like a slovenly middle-aged fat man who wakes up in ICU finally realizing that hearts can suffer attack and wondering why it had to be him.

When an adult rapes another adult or even a child they are seperated from society. We label them "sexual predators" and make laws to ensure that potential victims are kept at least 500 feet away. Maybe that is what we need to do, name a class of "financial predators" a group which legally is required to avoid structuring financial packages.

Australia started as a penal colony and the became something wonderfully unexpected. As the penal island idea seems to have set a successful precedent I suggest we try it again.
Alcatraz is too small, Australia should not be sullied and the Caymans and even Iceland are too nice.

I suggest we begin negotiating with Canada immediately. My guess is that they don' t need all of those islands north of Baffin and would happily part with a couple of the rockier more useless ones. We buy them – using assets seized from the convicts - and turn them into their own countries (no pesky Canadian human rights laws then) and start air dropping these bastards come next Thursday.

Who's with me?

Look, the people who created the mess are ALL gone. The management and staff in place now are working overtime to fix the problems created by the people who are gone. The captain ran the Titanic into the iceberg, jumped ship and left it to the rest of the crew to plug the holes and keep it from sinking. Your suggestion? Punish the crew that stayed for being stupid enough to be on the sinking ship in the first place. Brilliant.

Getting back $45 billion of our tax money is contingent on the performance of these firms GOING FORWARD. Surely we would want the best to ensure the best chance of actually succeeding GOING FORWARD. And the plan to attract or retain the best? Don't pay them, publicly vilify them and, in general, subject them to as much abuse and ridicule as possible. Yeah, I can see why the best and brightest would want to take the job.

Since the writer and the various posters are such management geniuses themselves, maybe THEY should run the banks. That way we can be sure we don't have the "best and brightest" running things. And compensation would not need to be an issue.