Re: Aig
 

So it's fair that he worked for $1?

Re: Aig
 

get used to it if you wanna be competitive. UAW has to compete against Chinese labor, time for the rest of us to get ready.

Re: worst President ever hits bottom, starts digging
 

if you study the dead sea scrolls you'll learn when Jesus wasn't distracted by mass producing fishes, and could focus, he made a mean baccala salad. still, when we evaluate him, we need to look to the gospels.

Re: Aig
 

How much did AIG make that year?

How did AIG's shareholders do?

How much did he make other years?

Sometimes, when he's sitting out on the porch overlooking the ocean from his 8 bedroom cottage in the Hamptons, drinking an appletini and oogling the co-eds on the beach, I'm sure Joe AIG ponders just how much capitalism sucks.

While Sebby's grandma has to move to a new facility because that AIG stock she was sold as a conservative investment tanked.

Re: Aig
 

today's challenge ain't no retirement- in a world where senior porn is a growth industry there is no reason for a woman as stacked as Sebby's grandma is to be sitting rotting in a nursing home.

Re: worst President ever hits bottom, starts digging
 

Bush deserves credit for appointing Powell and Rice to their positions.

On a different note, Bush let Cheney and Rumsfeld run foreign policy in his first term, shutting Powell out and stripping his NSA, Rice, of an effective role. This does not reflect well on him for reasons that have nothing to do with their race.

Re: worst President ever hits bottom, starts digging
 

Herbert Hoover probably thought he was doing the right thing, too. That doesn't mean he was.

Re: worst President ever hits bottom, starts digging
 

stp but thank you for the second, or actually third.

Re: worst President ever hits bottom, starts digging
 

2. or carter. or clinton. does obama think he's doing the right thing?

Re: Aig
 

A little closer to home than that, but nice instincts. I don't utter those letters at family gatherings. Until I'm drunk and surly and start ranting about things I don't know jack about.

Re: Aig
 

If either of them is stacked with anything, it's a whole lotta maggots. They've all been dead forever.

Re: Aig
 

motherfuck. somewhere in the NE burbs of Philly is an old lady with teeth marks on sagging d-cups, and my $100, which I gave up so i would have a lever on the sebster,

Re: Aig
 

Larry Bell's got my brain running slow again right now. Are you talking about eating my dead grandmother or defiling her?

Re: Aig
 

no. the implication was that some woman is impersonating your grandmother.

Re: Aig
 

I find the thread about pornography involving Sebastian's dead grandmother to be a good bit more erudite than the usual fare here. It's almost enough to make me start reading this board.

Almost.

Not really.

Ever.

Re: Aig
 

Time to clawback every penny paid to an legacy airline worker or U.S. auto worker for the last five years.

Re: Aig
 

If "every cent" means "90% of everything over $250K a year".

Besides being dead, the bonus tax bill didn't make sense from a bunch of other perspectives. But the sentiment is right on target. Screw these guys.

If they keep bitchin and moaning about not being well compensated enough to foreclose both on Sebby's Aunt, Sister, and Mother, I say we lower the $250 to $100 and resubmit.

Re: Aig
 

Yeah -- cause those guys all made millions when their companies were swimming in short-term profits from the same products that tanked the companies later.

Re: Aig
 

;)

Re: Aig
 

This is ridiculous. The guy clearly would not have done the work he did for $1. He would have rather sit on the beach, sipping appletini's then go to work for free. On top of that, he was reassured along the way that he would be paid. I can't believe anyone would actually think otherwise.

Now you may take issue with the AMOUNT he was due, but that is separate.

Re: Aig
 

2

Re: Aig
 

Leaving aside what he was told, the first part of what you say just isn't so. He would hardly have been the first exec to work for $1 with a bonus that was contingent on future performance (of him and the company).

You have to admit, the whole "look at us, we're working for just $1!" thing loses some impact when it's followed by "plus a $1 million bonus for our work in the year that the company tanked, and nearly brought down the world economy."

Re: Aig
 

Leaving aside that it appears that it isn't a bonus that was contingent on future performance (of him or the company), how do you know that he would have when he says he wouldn't?

As I hadn't heard that any of them (other than Liddy) were working for a dollar before this op-ed, I don't think anyone thought it had much (political) impact. Surely it helps illustrate that these "bonuses" were deferred compensation that was structured so the company could be assured that people were around for the whole year.

Re: Aig
 

I'm sorry -- I didn't realize that he was personal friends with you and Club, and that you two could comment on what he would or wouldn't have done but no one else was allowed to.

I thought we were discussing what people do in general. And, speaking in general, execs taking $1 salaries in exchange for some upside based on future (good) performance is hardly unprecedented.

Since you know him, and you and Club are uniquely positioned to comment on what he would've done, I withdraw my suggestion to the contrary.




Apparently, you weren't paying attention (except to the one guy you know personally, of course). The $1 salary thing was well-reported.

It happens.
 

I defending a bill I don't support here, but what the hell.

No one quibbled with him getting a quarter million. There's just a little tax on his more than a quarter million to help us pay the costs of keeping his sorry-ass business alive. If I've got to pony up to keep his sorry-ass business alive to pay him the quarter million, well, dammit all, he needs to pony up more.

Don't think of it as tax, think of it as insurance. We had to hike the premiums because they weren't calculated right the first time. Sorry about that, Joe.

Economics
 

I thought this post was fascinating, and this passage in particular has something to say about the "real" value of toxic assets:

Re: Economics
 

This is were the mistake was: "The reckless property lending that triggered this crisis only occurred because rational investors assumed that the probability of a fall in house prices was near zero."

The REH/ECM school of thought might not have resulted in the housing bubble had "they" not assumed the existence of the can opener.

Re: Economics
 

Well, right, but that's the point. Strong form efficient market hypothesis kind of requires that assumption, no? Not that anyone actually believe the strong form, I took the writer's assertion to be that there is still that underpinning that makes people believe in the bubble.

Re: Economics
 

Strong form requires the assumption that prices will always go up? News to me. Thought it was just that there is no way to reliably beat the market. "They" assumed that the market was irrational (as shorthand) and would remain irrational "forever"--they assumed the can opener.

Re: Economics
 

Strong form is that the market price reflects all knowable information. You are right that doesn't mean prices will always go up, but it does mean the fact that prices have been going up for a long time at fast rates isn't a warning sign that bad things are coming.

And I don't think they necessarily had to think prices would keep going up forever, as long as they believed they wouldn't go down. But maybe I am wrong about that (although it is what the quoted language said).

Re: Aig
 

My understanding was that it was not contingent. So he agreed to work for $1 plus $X in deferred comp. He did not agree to work for $1. And it's very convenient to put aside the assurances he got along the way. You know damn well that if you were in his situation you would feel totally burned.

Re: Aig
 

Please point me to an example. I have never seen an executive work for $1 and play the rest on the up. Please feel free to scour the public records. If you find example, it will be the needle in the haystack.

There's Never Anything Good in Here
 

This is worth watching just for the last line.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/63902/family-guy-fox-news

TM

Re: Aig
 

"Feel totally burned"?

He can feel as burned as he wants. I feel a little burned myself.

Deep Thought
 

Thanks to the tireless work of Rep. Baughmann, I can sleep more soundly tonight knowing that our world is one step farther away from the Lucasonian and Asimovian "credits" that will one day dominate the currency needs of our galaxies.

Re: Aig
 

Either you want an example or you don't.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P143257.asp

And the CEOs of RealNetWorks, The Big Three as well as AIG and Citibank have done it.

TM

Re: Aig
 

A few examples at Cisco, Oracle, Netscape, Apple, Ford, Chrysler, Sears, etc.

That article highlights some going back to the 40s. I think the modern trend started when Hoover took $1 a year for being President.

Note that Hoover was grossly overpaid.

Re: Deep Thought
 

You mean Bachmann of the McCarth-like hunt for unAmerican views?

Re: Deep Thought
 

Shit. Bachmann, Baughmann -- yes, that one.

I love to work at nothing all day.
 

Taking care of business, indeed. And working overtime.