Revenge of the Spurned

I won't just believe a "some say" pile of horse shit. I can't wait for the "better not investigate them because they're holding a gun to the world economy" argument. Jesus, get them a bald cat already, it doesn't get more Dr. Evil than this.

Seems like they wouldn't be able to do a whole heckuva lot of undermining the global financial system from prison, so why not put them there instead? I've started to see proposals for Congress to pass a targeted tax on AIG bonuses, but will that work on employees based out of London?

Sure we may need some of the people from the engine room. But these bonuses go to the managers whose only qualification is their MBA and can be REPLACED with another MBA without issue. Or better a person without an MBA, they are over-rated. All the details of the deals are known by the actual trading desk types and by the compliance people in the back office.

All of this stuff is just crap. This whole "blow up the world financial system" is nothing more than the "smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud" of the latest crisis. Bankers have figured out they stand to lose a lot of money and are trying to stick the taxpayer with the bill. AIG is just a way to shovel more money to them. It's like they've taken the world economy hostage and are holding it for ransom. The thing is, they haven't. If the bomb strapped to their chest goes off the only ones getting hurt are them.

How about we lock them all up? Their sentences could include the task of explaining to others exactly what they did to blow up the economy, so the ticking time bomb could be defused. If nothing else the spectacle of a bunch of these guys being led away in handcuffs would do wonders for national morale.

Are you telling me that AIG neglected to obtain the most basic contractual protections from those it hired -- like not using confidential information for any other purpose than performing their duties on behalf of AIG -- while gleefully contractually guaranteeing bonuses without any link to performance? AIG needs to be pulled apart. An institution that incompetent doesn't deserve to survive.

You know, this is the problem with our current system, where we pay these supposed geniuses of finance multi-millions annually. The thing is that they're not smarter than the rest of us, but what they do have is a job that gives them access to information the rest of us lack. Kind of like people with classified clearance. The thing is, we've paid them so much already that they can walk away from this job as very, very wealthy men. And they know it. This means it doesn't matter to them if their company fails or hell, it doesn't matter much if the rest of the economy fails. They'll still be rich. They'll go on vacation until the recession ends. In fact, the best use of their information at this point is NOT to save the company, but to extort us. The deal now is we either pay them their massive bonuses, or they'll walk away and let the company collapse. It's interesting to compare this to the behavior of the auto unions, who also had a contract that was signed before this economic collapse began. The unions (which, unlike these finance guys, had ZERO culpability for the collapse that Chrysler and GM were facing) had to put the interests of the company first because they were in a "mutually assured destruction" situation. Their workers couldn't walk away from the company. So, the workers had to pay a major price even though they'd done nothing wrong, and they opened up the contracts and took a major hit. This is one of many, many problems with paying these guys millions of dollars. The solvency of the company, the soundness of the deals, the nation's economic interests--none of these align with their interests anymore because they're as rich as Croesus. There's no leverage on them--we're literally in a position of bribing them as they extort us, threatening to leave with this information. That's why the government has to come down on these guys like a ton of bricks. The whole "pretty please, don't tank the economy" has to end. It gives them the power, and they'll use it to extort us further. If, in fact, the collapse of AIG is the end of the economy, it's time to treat these guys like financial terrorists. They WILL do their jobs, or we'll send them to gitmo. I'm actually not kidding about this. Right now, a CIA agent who makes 1/100 of what these guys make can go to jail if he tries to extort the government by threatening to mis-use information vital to our national security that he possesses. At the very least, these spoiled children who are threatening our national security by making extortionate demands against the survival of our financial markets should face similar consequences.

The message should be clear and direct. You are not getting any bonuses at all for 3 years. You are going to work hard to straighten out this mess you have created. If you do not comply, you will never work in this town, country or world again. The end.

and where are these talented people going to work after AIG? please.

Can these people engage in business if they're charged with something precisely relating to what they'd be doing?

These are "retention bonuses" to keep employees from leaving. This assumes the employees want / need another job. So KILL their chances for getting another job in finance. Announce a civil and criminal investigations into how badly the shareholders were defrauded, or fiduciary responsibilities evaded. Announce that charges will be brought up, and that regulators will look poorly at companies that hire these people since clearly these people are incompetent if not civilly and criminally liable. If they need a license to trade, take it away.

Make them earn those bonuses. They have to stay in their chairs and clean up the mess. When that's done, they get the money. And immunity from prosecution.

Trading against the books that you yourself made is, in essence, a form of tunneling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_(fraud)), and as such should be criminalized. Now.

Does Leavenworth have a trading desk?

Yes. I posted elsewhere that these financial elites have done far more damage to the country from within than all of these terrorists that we have been interrogating in an enhanced manner...

Jim G.: I hope it is their Alamo. We know how that turned out. I'm looking forward to the re-match. Very truly yours, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna