AIG CEO Robert Benmosche: 80-Year-Old Europeans Need To Be Working

[onehandle]

Source: Huffington Post

Robert Benmosche, chief executive of the recently bailed-out and largely government-owned American International Group, told Bloomberg from his seaside villa that he thinks the eurozone debt crisis will push the retirement age in the region way up. "Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old," he said. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”

World leaders have called an emergency meeting for Tuesday to discuss the crisis, as a Spanish banking meltdown and looming Greek election threaten to break up the Eurozone. One major source of debt for many of the countries in panic mode is generous pensions. One way out: Getting employees to have longer careers, at least in Greece, according to Benmosche.

For his part, the 68-year-old AIG chief told the company’s shareholders late last year that he planned to stay on longer than he originally anticipated.

Though Benmosche’s comments were directed at Europe, American workers may also be working well into their golden years. Already one quarter of middle-class Americans expect to retire when they’re 80, not 65, according to a Wells Fargo survey from November.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/04/aig-ceo-robert-benmosche-_n_1569072.html

[CBGLuthier]

1. I think this guy should be Romney's running mate.

such compassion.

[wordpix]

19. poor widdle CEO making much more than insurance median CEOs - $7.2 million/yr. vs. $4 million

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/12/ceo-compensation-11_Robert-H-Benmosche_PCO8.html

Robert H Benmosche's
Compensation vs. Insurance Medians

Salary $3.00 mil $1.00 mil
Bonus NA $1.60 mil
Other $4.02 mil $0.58 mil
Stock Gains NA $0.00 mil
Total Compensation $7.02 mil $4.16 mi

Guy should be fired right now.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Maybe if we didn't have to fork over $190 billion to save your fucked up company

retirement programs would be stronger.

Asshole.

Yeah, and I know it's supposedly about Europe, but the owners are peddling the same shit over here.

Keep people in their jobs into their 70's...that benefits the young? How, exactly? Keep everyone scared and corporate profits up is the program.

[wordpix]

20. +10000 Absolutely

[Octafish]

38. Including $36 Billion for French and German banks tied to AIG's mess.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/03/german_and_fren.html

I'd LOL, if it wasn't so criminal.

[freshwest]

40. Don't hold back now, tell the man what you really think! BTW, I agree 100%.

[Delphinus]

49. And where will

both the older ones and the younger ones work? Isn't there a staggering amount of unemployment as it is?

[Myrina]

3. "from his seaside villa"

... where's a guillotine when ya need one? What an asshole.

Will HE still be "working" when he's 80?? Doubt it, but bunches of us will be, to pay for his platinum parachute. Fucker.

[Ganja Ninja]

17. Yeah "It would sure make the payments easier on this seaside villa if ...

you could just work until you drop".

[Hassin Bin Sober]

37. I'm sure he will work until he is 80.

If you count a no-show job on the board, half a million dollar salary and access to the company jet, cars and retreats, work.

[waddirum]

54. Thanks for speaking out loud

what I was hesitant to say myself.

It's almost like they are rubbing it in our faces to see if we still have the gag reflex.

[Lasher]

4. I wonder how many people over 65 have been hired by AIG this year?

Bunches and bunches, I'll bet.

[the_chinuk]

5. Staying on at 68 … what a guy

I presume he's working past the traditional retirement cutoff in his cushy, luxurious job in order to inspire the rest of us proles in underpaid, overstressed have-to-do-it jobs to keep plugging on.

Such sacrifices.

Like I said, what a guy.

[Liberal Veteran]

6. Let him work until 80. Perhaps as a roofer or dishwasher.

See how long it is before he changes his tune or collapses and dies as his body gives out.

[DetlefK]

9. Let him work this kind of jobs for a full month RIGHT NOW.

Spending all day standing on your feet or bend over on your knees or hauling heavy stuff or handling tiny screws and parts ...

It's easy to talk about work if you sit in front of a PC all day long.

[Liberal Veteran]

12. Yep. Exactly. I work in front of a PC all day...

....but I also remember what it was like loading trucks by hand in a factory warehouse and working on the assembly line trying to make production. Hardly something I would want to be doing in my 70's.

[JDPriestly]

26. Work in front of a PC all day until you are 70 and wait to see what your back feels like.

Ergonomics only does so much for you.

You can't sit in that cramped position and overtax the small muscles in your shoulders, arms and muscles for many, many years without causing yourself a lot of problems.

And all of us who work office jobs in which we sit and sit and sit for hours have to watch for lower back problems.

I was careful to take a walk at lunch every day and did not hold down sitting jobs for that many years and have still paid for it.

[RebelOne]

35. I worked in front of a computer all day up till I was 71.

Then I was laid off, but I am no worse for the wear of sitting all day. I would still be working today if I could.

[boppers]

43. If you're sitting in a cramped position, you're "doing it wrong".

If you're sitting in a chair for a whole hour, you're also doing it wrong. Get up. Move. You're damaging your health.

http://www.wikihow.com/Exercise-While-Sitting-at-Your-Computer

[JDPriestly]

46. Try to explain that to your boss when you miss a deadline. That's the problem,

meeting deadlines when you are doing computer work. I suppose it depends on the job.

In my job, I typed, read and e-mailed at the computer far too much. I loved doing it, but my back went out some time after I retired. I was hunching over -- just as I had hunched over for years at my computer.

Now I'm trying to straighten my back -- doing exercises to reverse the damage I did to myself. You don't realize when you are young just how much sitting in the same position for long periods of time with only short periods of relaxation or contrary movements can do to you.

[boppers]

47. If you work for a shitty boss, you are fucked. The field doesn't matter.

Hunching is so bad, so incredibly bad... monitors should be at eye level, keyboard at a relaxed hand and arm position, breaks should be *created* by superiors if your staff is over-working or working poorly...

Sadly, much of what is known now has only been learned in the last 40 years, at a great cost of human suffering.

[Beacool]

7. He must have forgotten about his own mortality.

The man has cancer. Prior to becoming AIG's CEO he was Met Life's CEO. During his tenure 10,000 jobs were outsourced. He's trying to do the same to AIG. Since the government still owns a majority share of the company, how come they haven't stopped them from sending jobs overseas?

They are all on the same boat.

[boppers]

44. Maybe he knows he won't have to keep working.

...and is a bit upset that he can never really retire.

[Blue_Tires]

45. evil bastard must think he can transfer his wealth to the afterlife...

I hate these fluffy, softball interviews where the ivory tower dwellers think we actually give a shit about their analysis...

[bupkus]

8. I'll be happy to work until I'm 80

As long I'm working at this empty suit's job.

The average worker would work themselves to death long before 80 and this bastard, Benmosche, and every single one of the other empty suits just like him, knows it.

[shcrane71]

10. Says the 68-year-old from his sea-side resort in Croatia.

I heard a similar story on NPR yesterday where at the end the NPR correspondent mentioned that they had reached the 68 year old while he was vacationing at a sea-side resort in Croatia.

[Beacool]

14. Isn't that just sickening!!

While he's relaxing in Croatia, AIG has continued to quietly lay off people.

[shcrane71]

22. Sickening, short-sighted, and just plain dumb...

The rich have always, always, always stood on the backs of the workers. If you break the workers backs, you're no longer rich.

[suffragette]

11. This from the guy whose company received huge tax breaks in addition to the bailout

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/Business-Buzz/2012/02/28/The-Infuriating-Inexcusable-AIG-Tax-Deal.aspx#page1


http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/bending-the-tax-code-and-lifting-a-i-g-s-profit/?ref=business

Last week, the American International Group reported a whopping $19.8 billion profit for its fourth quarter. It was a quite a feat for a company that was on its death bed just a little over three years ago, so sick that it needed a huge taxpayer bailout.

But if you dug into the numbers, it quickly became clear that $17.7 billion of that profit was pure fantasy — a tax benefit, er, gift, from the United States government. The company made only $1.6 billion during the quarter from actual operations. Yet A.I.G. not only received a tax benefit, it is unlikely to pay a cent of taxes this year, nor by some estimates, for at least a decade.

The tax benefit is notable for more than simply its size. It is the result of a rule that the Treasury unilaterally bent for A.I.G. and several other hobbled companies in 2008 that has largely been overlooked.

This rule-twisting could deprive the government of tens of billions of dollars, assuming the firm remains profitable. The tax dodge — and let’s be honest, that’s what it is — also will most likely help goose the bonuses of A.I.G.’s employees, some of whom helped create many of the problems that led to its role in the financial crisis.



But, hey have to find a way to keep the enormous salaries, bonuses and tax breaks flowing to the people who created the mess in the 1st place.


Also, the best way to "take the burden off of the youth" would be for people to be able to retire earlier, thus freeing up jobs for the youth, who now face increasingly high unemployment rates because of the austerity push by Benmoshe and his colleagues. And they would then be contributing to pension funds.

No coincidence that many of AIG's bailout pay outs went to the European banks whose high risk bets with AIG and others fed the crisis and who all sing in the same chorus demanding ever more austerity. And even as austerity is a clear failure when viewing the nations and majority of citizens it is crushing, it's clear the calls for it to continue are coming from the corrupt 1% who draw ever larger profits and benefits at the public's expense.

[closeupready]

13. This story is ripe with silkscreen/photoshop possibilities.

Elad, SwampRat, anyone? K&R

[BlueIris]

15. Insanity. nt

[Mika]

16. Complete insanity defined ...

"They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”

Huh? OK.

[hr]

| | | | |

[JDPriestly]

28. If your dad is rich, rich, rich and 70, work is merely a burden that

your dad can remove from your shoulders by continuing to earn his mega-salary and paying your way with it.

Most of us don't have dad's like that or aren't dads like that, so our children are desperate to get jobs and keep them.

This man is seriously out of touch. He should be fired. Who is his boss?

Here are the members of the Board of Directors

http://www.aigcorporate.com/corpgovernance/board_directors.html

[wordpix]

18. "the average retirement age of American workers hit 67" ---Benmosche's time is up

[newspeak]

21. these clueless wonders are the type of people they are hiring as CEOs

no wonder we are in such a fix. They are laying off people in their fifties-where are seniors going to find a job. What he's really saying is that seniors won't be able to find a job and won't have anything to fall back on and so, they can just fekkin DIE!

It doesn't take the burden off of the young. If seniors are lucky to have a job, it will keep the young endlessly looking for work. The guy is a compassionless, clueless wonder. And this is the guy they think has a talent for running a large corporation? Oh, it helps if the government is helping out-help out the greedy, profit over country corporations, but don't help out the people. Gotcha big guy!!!!!

[ut oh]

25. Being a CEO no longer takes talent

Anyone can say "Lay off 10% of our workforce to save money".

The talent lies in the ability to make connections to get you that cushy job...

[IDemo]

32. They're not clueless

They know precisely what they intend to take out of the hides of the working and middle (what remains) classes.

[renegade000]

23. ah yes, force everyone <80 years old to re-enter the workforce...

that will help the unemployment situation...

[JDPriestly]

24. The question is not how much longer Benmosche plans to stay on in his soft job

but how many 70 to 80 year-olds, AIG employes.

If an ordinary person is going to work until 65, 70 or 80. he or she has to be able to find and keep a job.

With unemployment so high among people under 80, how in the world does Benmosche think people aged 80 will find jobs.

Mr. Benmosche is having a nervous breakdown. He is not living in reality. He is not thinking rationally.

If Benmosche is that irrational and that unable to automatically multiply the unemployment rates by the numbers of people who would need to find jobs if we continued to work until we were 80, how in the world does he run one of the world's largest insurance companies?

Maybe the problem is becoming clearer: business leaders who don't think rationally and who can't count, Benmosche being an excellent example.

[Brigid]

27. Let's see . . .

Torches, pitchforks, guillotine . . . Have I forgotten anything? Good Lord.

[wordpix]

30. you forgot the tar and feathers

[Odin2005]

29. Where are those damn guillotines I ordered???

[onehandle]

31. I keep this graphic handy for the inevitable.

France 1789, beotches.

[IDemo]

33. I'm afraid those are backordered until August 2015

[Odin2005]

41. LMAO!

[lovuian]

34. They can't stand that Europeans have a better life than Americans

We work and work and get no respect or retirement or healthcare
even though our children defend the world

It so sucks

Our money for our retirement is going into the military budget which is HUGE

and health insurance should be given to everyone as a right
Europe already has proven their system works

[WinkyDink]

36. Arbeit macht frei.

[Myrina]

39. ... and yet the company I work for just canned 35 people ...

... all of whom have been with the company at least 10 years and were an average of 50 years old ... which means they were due some healthy 401k, insurance & vacation compensation (had they stayed on payroll). We're a 'Right to Work' state so of course the DOL laughed and told them to fuck off when one inquired about filing a complaint.

So tell me, Mr. Asshole Executive, sir, how are people supposed to be working past age 50 when greedy clowns like you are firing them because they're "too expensive" to keep on payroll?

[sarcasmo]

42. Wow! rich douche bags have no clue.

[Duer 157099]

48. "They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.”

Take that burden off of the youth? Wha? You mean, the unemployed youth, because there are no jobs because nobody is retiring? Swell. If you mean, they won't have the burden of paying taxes because they don't make any money, ok. Ass.

[DonCoquixote]

50. take that burden off of the youth."

really?
HAW HAW

Bastards like this see Youth as one thing: slaves, or to be more honest, Livestock. They will start breeding Monsanto patented youth if they get the chance, complete with features to make them useful after they have been worked to death, such as optional Ham flavor..

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

51. Not only are people now working two jobs, if they can find them, to survive

Not only are they working without vacations or sick time privileges, without pensions, health coverage, or periodic raises. Not only are they unable to afford college for their kids, but now they have to work until they're 80? Next, he'll propose that those 80 year olds who need to work to survive and who can't find a job should consider pulling his fat ass in a rickshaw on days of heavy traffic downtown, like coolies.

[yellowcanine]

52. Eighty is the new Sixty!

[KamaAina]

53. Thereby shutting an entire generation of young people out of the labor market

What a . No wonder he ran AIG into the ground.

[Beacool]

55. Actually, he didn't.

As much as I think that the guy is an insensitive a-hole, he wasn't the CEO at the time of the economic collapse. Martin Sullivan was the CEO. After Sullivan came Edward Liddy and now Bemosche.

[4th law of robotics]

56. Not much need for higher productivity when there is no demand for the product of that labor.