Congress' reaction to AIG bonuses -- am I the only oneconcerned?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: agrosso () att net
Date: March 19, 2009 6:55:27 PM EDT
To: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Congress' reaction to AIG bonuses -- am I the only  
oneconcerned?
Reply-To: agrosso () att net

I take a different tack entirely.  The issue is not whether the  
bonuses were earned, or were subject to a legal contract.

The issue is more simple: once you require govenment funds to continue  
to operate, there can be no such thing as business as usual.  The  
taxpayer does not pay high six, or seven figure compensation  
packages.  If you don't like the rules, leave.  There are plenty of  
quants out there looking for employment who will take your job.  This  
is the real world of the taxpayers who are paying your salary.  And  
you can't take what you learned at your old job and put it to use  
against your old company - that's a criminal violation of the federal  
trade secrets act.

The remedy for AIG is either outright, short term nationalization, or  
a congressionally structured reorganization. For other organizations  
that haven't crossed the line yet, more stringent bailout terms will  
be needed. The taxpayers set the rules when they are paying your salary.

We should take over 100% of AIG, clear house of management and board  
who allowed this to occur, and set future compensation at a reasonable  
rate.  If we operated the RTC, we can do this.  Sorry for the private  
shareholders, but they lost their equitable right to equity a long  
time ago.

The tax bill passed by
the House is probably unconstitutional, and if enacted into law will  
be held as such by the courts.  It will only serve as a short term CYA  
for politicians and as an ill timed mess for the market place.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>

Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:13:10
To: ip<ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: [IP] Congress' reaction to AIG bonuses -- am I the only one
concerned?




Begin forwarded message:

From: "Savage, Christopher" <ChrisSavage () dwt com>
Date: March 19, 2009 5:25:43 PM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: RE: [IP] Congress' reaction to AIG bonuses -- am I the only
one concerned?

Dave:

A few points:

1.  Any comments about whether the bonuses were or were not appropriate
under the contracts are without foundation unless one has read the
contracts.

2.  Even if the bonuses were paid in accordance with the contracts, that
does not mean that the contracts themselves are valid and enforceable.
There are any number of possible grounds for attacking them in the
abstract although, again, without seeing the contracts and knowing the
circumstances, it's hard to know which if any might apply.

3.  Lauren's comments assume that the individuals who received the
bonuses were, in effect, innocent of wrongdoing, either with respect to
the underlying mess or with respect to what would be needed to clean it
up.  If that is true then he might have a point.  I have not seen
information to show that it is true, however.

Chris S.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 5:19 PM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] Congress' reaction to AIG bonuses -- am I the only one
> concerned?
>
> I disagree djf
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> Date: March 19, 2009 2:04:08 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Congress' reaction to AIG bonuses -- am I the only one
> concerned?
>
>
> Dave,
>
> I can't be the only person feeling increasingly disturbed by Congress'
> reaction to the obnoxious AIG bonuses controversy.
>
> I believe we all pretty much agree that the bonuses were utterly
> inappropriate to be contracted when they were ... but the fact is that
> they *were* contracted, and work was done on the basis of those
> contracts (much of which is now completed, and the relevant persons
> departed as planned).  We now know it was the Obama Treasury
> Department that requested the language honoring those bonuses (despite
> righteous indignation we're hearing now from the administration about
> the bonuses -- after the story blew up).
>
> It's particularly chilling to hear Congress talking about special
> targeted 90% or 95% taxes to try suck back the bonuses from
> individuals at this stage of the game.  It's completely appropriate to
> recover the funds from AIG, but retroactively going after the
> individuals who worked under legal contract terms -- in expectation of
> being paid under those terms -- seems to me to set a terrible
> precedent.  Emotions are running wild over logic.
>
> I'm a big supporter of Obama, but the AIG situation seems to me to
> have become overly personalized, and now members of Congress are
> trying to out posture each other with "get tough" reactions, some of
> which seem to be very poorly thought out (surprise! surprise!) and
> could do even more damage.
>
> Am I alone in thinking that the situation is becoming chaotic, with
> many of the negative ramifications associated with such chaos?
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein
> lauren () vortex com
> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
> http://www.pfir.org/lauren
> Co-Founder, PFIR
> - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
> Co-Founder, NNSquad
> - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
> Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
> for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
> Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
> Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
> Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
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