Just when you thought AIG couldn't -- or wouldn't -- court more Main Street hostility, it turns around and does something like pay out another round of bonuses worth $100 million. Granted, legal contracts demand the allocation, but you think the company would find a quieter way to do it.
Then again, perhaps it's best to be counterintuitive when it comes to the AIG saga. Instead of lamenting the day the government stepped in to help or bemoaning the minute one CDS changed hands, it might be better to (silently) praise the company for stepping up as scapegoat. Someone's effigy needs to be burned, right? Might as well be the company everyone loves to hate (and no, we're not talking about Goldman this time around).
So what's the payout this time? It's only incredibly confusing.
AIG could pay out as much as $100 million of the promised bonuses this week. Meanwhile, employees of its financial products division "agreed to a $20 million reduction in $195 million of previously promised awards," writes the Wall Street Journal. At the same time, AIG got back $20 million from former and current employees as a step toward collecting $45 million of bonuses paid out to employees of the aforementioned unit. Clearly, that hasn't been going very well, even though the employees made it seem like they'd be game for repaying the amount.
Tim Geithner has come up with a plan to both sate public outrage and shepherd President Obama's financial reforms through Congress. If the bank fee that Obama's been touting goes through, it can go toward recouping missing money from AIG bonuses.
Seems pretty political, if you ask us, but what fiscal policy isn't these days?
Write to Julie Steinberg