If they take back the A.I.G. bonuses, no one's bonus is safe

[DainBramaged]

I'm just sayin'. Think about it.

[Orrex]

1. No one who got a bonus from a company that begged the gov't for a bailout, maybe

[frazzled]

2. Um, what bonus?

Most people don't get bonuses. They earn salaries.

[DainBramaged]

3. In spite of your claim, lots of people in management get performance bonuses as part

of their pay, including profit and sales incentives. We stopped being a blue collar Country a long time ago, or hadn't you noticed? Oh, and I don't earn a salary, I get paid by the hour.

[rpannier]

7. Did your company get billions from the US Government?

[frazzled]

9. Not talking about blue collar

Some examples of people who do not get bonuses: university professors, doctors, scientists, researchers, secondary school teachers, book editors (I know this last one personally), museum curators, etc. etc. etc. I doubt police and firefighters get bonuses, though I suppose you consider them blue collar. Really, not everyone works for a corporation. In fact, most people don't work for a corporation.

[DainBramaged]

13. Sure, you have your employment figures down pat

better do a little research before you claim what you claim about most people not working for corporations. And Toyota LINE WORKERS got bonuses last year. Look it up And they were blue collar.



http://www.bls.gov/OES/ <-click here.

[Hannah Bell]

18. link to where it says most people work for corporations.

[DainBramaged]

29. I'll give you a hint, what are McDonald's, Taco Bell, Target and Walmart?

Boeing, Caterpillar, GM, Ford, and Honda?

[Hannah Bell]

42. you linked the bls. i wanted the page where it said most people work for corps.

most people don't work at the places you mention.

in my town, the biggest employer is the state, followed by health care industry.

last breakdown i saw makes "government" the biggest single employer nationally.

large corporations take more than half of profits but employ under 5% of workers.

those were the stats i've seen.

so i wanted a link to your claim, instead of a link to bls home page with no indication of where in its hundreds of documents to look.

[DainBramaged]

39. I'll give you ANOTHER hint, virtually EVERY township, city, and school district ,college

hospital, (did I miss any possibilities) are INCORPORATED, so the MAJORITY of us work for CORPORATIONS.

[NMMNG]

21. If your company does such a shitty job

that you need government (taxpayer) bailouts, you don't deserve any "performance bonuses" or other such incentives. Duh.

[Dorian Gray]

31. PERFORMANCE bonuses....

Though I agree with your premise (which is why pushing through the bail out money without proper oversight or attention to detail was a mistake!!!!), I find it extraordinarily questionable on AIG's part that these bonuses are GUARANTEED by their contract. Bonuses are usually determined by performance of particular departments. If a department runs a company into the ground, they would not receive million dollar bonuses.

[Jim Sagle]

4. OK, I thought about it. Hogwash!

If you'd said no one's bonus is safe if they work for a zombie company being propped up by our tax money, you'd be right.

[omega minimo]

5. Right and if they take away CORPORATE WELFARE no one's welfare is safe.

:freak:

[Deja Q]

69. Nice.

Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.

[BlooInBloo]

6. Sure they are. Everyone who isn't 79% owned by the government is safe, for example.

[merh]

8. So let me get this straight, they needed the federal monies, our

tax dollars, to survive - without it they would fail. Without it they (the folks that got the bonuses) would be out of work and without salary, let alone the bonuses. Is that how it goes?

Now, I've been awarded bonuses before and the bonus was not a certainty, even if my contract provided for them. They were based upon my performance, whether or not my individual efforts helped the company profit and they were not taken from the operating budget but from the profits of the business. I actually had to generate enough money for the company to pay for my salary and the cost of my employment (all overhead, taxes, FICA, benefits, etc).

If AIG is not profiting but suffering so that it needs federal funds to survive then there are no profits and the performance of the individuals haven't been exactly stellar.

So ... if I ever work for a company/corporation that relies on federal funds/tax dollars to survive I will not expect a bonus, I won't expect my bonus to be safe.

[KharmaTrain]

10. Now There's A Neat Talking Point

Many of us would love a job where there was a bonus for just showing up...and then getting millions for destroying both the company and the economy. Fact is most of us are lucky to get a bonus. It's not a guarantee...if it were, then include those payments as part of one's compensation. The downside to a "bonus" is its almost always up to the owner to give one or not...and try to go to court and demand one...even if its in writing. I've had "incentives" at one time and wasn't it just a pisser that when I came close to that "bonus", the goalpost was moved...or I have heard of too many instances where a bonus was due and the boss found a "technicality".

Just sayin'...

[terisan]

11. A dangerous precedent. nt

[DainBramaged]

12. I'm going to bed, do your best, but remember one word

precedent.


good night.

[B o d i]

16. Performance

Good night.

[bottomtheweaver]

14. And?

Who says they're safe now?

[Lost in CT]

15. You know what I think I will deal... Oh and when the feds own 80% of your company

and you lose billions a quarter the rules are different.

[sandnsea]

17. Right. The Dept of Bonus Confiscation

:rofl:

[pepperbear]

19. delete

[cliffordu]

20. out of my cold dead checking account.....

:rofl:

[Hanse]

22. Well now that's a poorly concieved and paranoid idea if I ever heard one.

Because they tax income, does that mean no income is safe?

Don't be silly.

[SeattleGirl]

23. Sorry, cannot agree with you here.

If someone actually EARNS their bonus by working hard, and helping to make the company they work for profitable or whatever, then they deserve the bonus.

BUT, if they are people like those at AIG who got bonuses despite the fact that they helped drive the company to the ground, then I say NO.

I'm all for fairness, but fairness has to come from both ends.

In the case of AIG, fuck it.

The don't deserve the bonuses.

[Adsos Letter]

28. That's the way it always worked for me....

if I produced a profit, I got a sweet bonus, based on percentage, which increased as my tenure with the company did.

[bottomtheweaver]

24. And if no one's bonus is safe, my ATM will run out of money,

because if those bonuses aren't there, banks will stop lending to each other and I won't be able to buy groceries at the store. And since I heard it on CNN, I know it's true.

[Contrary1]

25. What bonus? Getting back the 15% paycut maybe? n/t

[aquart]

26. What a shame.

[NaturalHigh]

27. I can't agree with you on this one.

I admit that the precedent of the Pelosi group calling for a 90% tax on anything scares me a bit, but in the case of taxing only the bonuses of companies that accepted a certain amount of government money, I think it's fair. While I don't like the idea of such confiscatory rates being levied by the government, in this case the government is looking to get back money that was practically stolen from taxpayers.

[Fumesucker]

37. The top marginal tax rate was 90%

When Eisenhower was POTUS..

Scary, eh?

[NaturalHigh]

44. Yes, that's scary.

I hope we never go back to those days.

[Fumesucker]

67. I have a feeling you might not understand "marginal tax rates"

That doesn't mean your entire income was taxed at 90%, just income above a certain, usually pretty high, point.

[NaturalHigh]

68. Actually, I do understand marginal tax rates.

I may not be the smartest guy around, but I did finish college and even managed to take some accounting and economics courses. I still don't like the idea of a 90% top marginal tax rate.

[HooptieWagon]

48. Yet there still were plenty of rich people.

And the size of the middle class and standard of living grew tremendously.

[RebelOne]

30. Who gets a bonus? I certainly never did.

But the big wigs at the company I work for surely do. So I could only hope their bonuses aren't safe.

[lunatica]

32. I don't get bonuses

Just sayin'

And I could use one every year because I'm an asset to the university where I work.

[Reader Rabbit]

33. What bonuses? I'm a teacher!

Or maybe you think they're going to take the few coffee mugs and homemade ornaments I sometimes get from the kids at Christmas?

Hmmm....that might be a good thing!

[lunatica]

34. They should pay it back at 23% interest

That's what the credit card companies are charging now.

[yodoobo]

35. This is only used for greedy executives

With excessive compensation contracts.

There is really no application here at all to union contracts.

Besides, as I've written before, bonus's are nothing more than excess compensation.

[librechik]

36. Bull--it's only for folks who took TARP money

and besides, it's unconstitutional and won't work. The main offenders live in the UK. When do they have to pay taxes tot the US?

[JackRiddler]

38. Really lost sleep over this last night. Well, no.

[lumberjack_jeff]

40. Okay. I'm thinkin about it. Nope, it's still good. n/t

[TCJ70]

41. If I paid for your bonus...

...against my will, I should be able to take it back.

[guitar man]

43. what's a bonus?

I have no clue what that even is? I come to work, every day, on time as I have for over 8 years for this company. I succeed at my job, I have to or I won't have a job, period. I have never been offered a performance. I don't have a contract.The only reward I receive for doing my job is a net pay loss due to my family health coverage premiums rising faster than my pay raises each year? So tell me again, why should I care? :shrug:

And, oh yeah, I WORK AS HARD AS ANYBODY, ANYWHERE!!

[OhioChick]

45. I've never gotten a bonus anywhere I've ever worked.

Do us common folk get bonuses? :shrug:

[Malikshah]

46. "I'm just sayin" = a lack of thought and is intended to create a flamewar.

DU is better than that-- or should be.

Logical fallacies are tiresome.

[DainBramaged]

50. I see you've taken up the pitchfork like the rest here, pity

Two words, and they ain't Merry Christmas.

[avaistheone1]

61. No bonuses for company employees whose companies are failing and who are recipients of taxpayer

bailout dollars.

It would be stupid and total bullshit to pay these people bonuses for running the whole country and economy into the ground.

[DainBramaged]

63. See reply #60

You all missed the point. I'm done trying to figure out who here has the power of cognitive thought.


When I worked for the Japanese from 1983-1994, I had contracts, contracts that, excluding my stealing from the company or murdering one of their executives, were unbreakable. If they decided that we had to part ways, they HAD TO BY LAW fulfill the contract, every sentence, including performance bonuses and prerequisites. What the Congress just did was tell corporate America that the contracts with their white collar employees are toilet paper, and that they aren't iron clad any longer. LOOPHOLES people, Federally sanctioned LOOPHOLES.

That's the point, and I'm done trying to explain to those of you too saddled with tunnel vision to understand.

[avaistheone1]

65. You started the thread with the premise that if AIG bonuses are taken back no one is safe.

I would say the opposite is true. AIG has made the country and the world unsafe by their dealings.
They should not be rewarded for that. Giving AIG those bonuses after they have sent the economies of the world down an enormous rathole the size of the Grand Canyon would be a very bad and unsafe example of the government's stewardship of taxpayer money. Very unsafe indeed.

Better to break AIG's sleazy contracts - which the government was never really a part of anyways, than to break the people's Treasury.

[Malikshah]

70. Now I'm all a flutter. What two words could they be????

Yup-- in a right tizzy...

Great discourse....

[1]

47. fuck those that get bonuses. fuck smokers too...

fuck anyone that gets something or does something i don't do...

[SmileyRose]

49. Yep, GM/UAW profit sharing bonuses are probably forever gone now.

An everyday schlub agrees to take less money up front in exchange for a crap shoot with bonuses down the road and they get lumped in the greedy fucking 1%ers because their employer took out loan guarantees from Uncle Sam.

The idea of targeted taxes doesn't bother me - all taxes and tax breaks are targeted. But this idea bonuses are evil does bother me.

[alfredo]

51. If they drop their suit against our government for over $300 million,

maybe we will back off too.

[ContinentalOp]

52. Never gotten a bonus in my life.

But then I guess I could see why you'd be nervous since your company is constantly begging the government to bail them out.

[DainBramaged]

53. With that comment, I wish you too a Merry Christmas

If you're referring to GM, it's not 'my' company, since I no longer own shares, but since you obviously think that slamming one of the last bastions of blue collar manufacturing as 'begging', while the manufacturers of the car you drive are paying about $14 an hour to make it, I hope the day comes when YOUR job is no longer secure.

Merry Christmas sucker.

OH, and I clicked the red X. Be an asshole somewhere else.

[U4ikLefty]

54. You should have stayed in bed.

[DainBramaged]

55. Click

X

I see ignored people, so sad, too bad

[AZ Criminal JD]

56. You are still around?

Click

[DainBramaged]

58. Another asshole farts for the peanut gallery

thanks for the click. I'll return the favor post haste.

[Political Heretic]

59. I think I can support fellow blue collar workers and not praise GM all at the same time!

I'm talented like that. Still... I'd pay tax money to support the auto manufacturing sector, I just want to make sure we do that in the best way. Is handing it to GM the way? We'll see.

Sorry I decided to butt in. :)

[Political Heretic]

57. .....if their company fails and is bought out (at 80%) by the government.

Then yes, their bonuses shouldn't be "safe" since now the US taxpayer is propping the company up when it would otherwise be left to fail in a free market - no bonuses that way either.

So what's the problem?

[DainBramaged]

60. If you think about my question, I wasn't referring to the AIG bonuses

why is this so hard to grasp?

Let me try to simplify it. (I thought DU was overrun by really smart people).

This is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT breaking a contract between a company and an employee over a bonus, a bonus that was guaranteed long before there was a bailout. If you had a contract with your employer, and up till now, they HAD to honor the contract, no matter how silly the stipulations it contained were, but now the GOBERNMENT says, nope, contract is worthless, it can be broken, then precedence is set, and the concept of the employee contract is dead.

THAT is my point, but almost everyone took the route of tarring and feathering me instead of thinking about this.

You should all go back to posting captions under Sarah Palin photos.

[Political Heretic]

62. Oh I understood your point just fine.

I just think its meritless.

These are a pretty extremely special set of circumstances in which a contract would be broken by the government - one in which without taxpayer intervention the company would fail, thus breaking its contracts anyway. Once you have to go to the government to save your company from collapse, all contracts are on the table.

That's a risk that I'm willing to take. I don't believe this will spell the death of the employee contract. You do. Fine. We can disagree.

[DainBramaged]

64. Ask the former Federal employees of the airline traffic controllers Union if they agree with you

the foot is in the door, and now that they have destroyed the Middle class, they will go after the White collar guys, which from what I can see, is a pretty big portion of DU members, since so many here hold people who work with their hands in such low esteem.

BTW, you aren't taking ANY risk. That song doesn't play here. Cya.

[Political Heretic]

66. Union busting does not = coming to the government to save your failing company from ruin.

Union busting and special conditions on a company that comes TO THE GOVERNMENT asking to be saved from ruin are entirely different things. It's an apples to oranges comparison.

BTW: you don't know anything about what risk I am or am not taking.

[Odin2005]

71. No, only BS bonuses given out by bailed out companies are not safe.

And that's the way it should be. If you drive a major corporation so much into the ground that it needs to be bailed out by the government to prevent an economic collapse you shouldn't be getting a bonus.