Your Sunday morning AIG surreality check...

So I was in Google News this morning and found this totally awesome CNN story - Treasury pressure leads to AIG scaling back bonuses - You can find it at http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/14/aig.bonuses/

(Sorry, but I run Ubuntu and Firefox and can't get my highlight tool to work.)

Anyhow, it seems the CEO at AIG, CEO Edward Liddy, was miffed because those miserable bastards at Treasury wanted him to cut down bonuses to his best and brightest.

Says the story -

Liddy says in the letter that he personally does not receive a bonus, but that some bonus payments are unavoidable, because they are binding legal obligations of the company, and "there are serious legal, as well as business consequences for not paying."

I can't help but believe that line of reasoning is... hmmm... legalistic bs perhaps.

Back to what the story says -

Liddy, however, makes clear that he made the changes with trepidation, saying in the letter: "I would not be doing my job if I did not directly advise you of my grave concern about the long-term consequences of the actions we are taking today," specifying that if employees believe the company will have trouble attracting and retaining "the best and the brightest ... if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."

Quick thought - instead of establishing a bonus program that results in the employees believing that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury why don't we set up we set up one that results in the employees believing they have to do their damn jobs right?

So far in the last quarter these best and brightest have overachieved their company's way to "a record $62 billion" loss. The bright side for AIG, according to CNN, was that these same fine minds were able to scam, er... score a $170 billion government bailout package.

If this is the best your brightest can do, Mr. Libby, then maybe rather than give them a bonus it's time for AIG to just call it quits.