Remember those big bonuses at AIG that President Obama called an "outrage" last March? The ones that recipients said they would pay part of back? Well, surprise, surprise, they've so far reneged on paying back every dollar they said they would. According to The Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. pay czar is clashing with American International Group Inc. over $243 million in retention bonuses, potentially sparking a showdown over the insurer's compensation practices.
Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury Department's special master for compensation, has told AIG it should reduce $198 million in promised payments for 2010 and recoup $45 million already paid in 2009. The demands were made public in a report from Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the government's bailout.
AIG had agreed to both efforts earlier this year and has recouped about $19 million of the $45 million it paid in March. But some AIG employees are balking at returning 2009 bonuses until they know how much they will receive in 2010, according to people familiar with the matter.
As a result, Mr. Feinberg may slash some employees' 2009 salaries to compensate for the retention payments, these people said.
Good for him. But look how brazen these plutocrats are. Not that it's any surprise. They've been fattening themselves up for quite some time, feeding on deregulation and poor oversight of the residual rules. Now, however, with $182 billion in government money on their books, they're getting fat courtesy of the taxpayers instead of the financial finagling that helped wreck the economy and put millions of Americans out of work and out of their homes.
Barofsky was on hand this morning for hearings led by Rep. Edolphus Towns, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Towns is against any future bonus payments. "It just doesn't seem right that the people who caused this tragedy should be so richly rewarded," Towns told the Journal.
A people's avenger might even be led to think penalties a tad more rigorous than cutting off bonuses are in order. Hauling in everyone who contributed to the tragedy, however, would require a net far larger than Congressman Towns is ever likely to see.