AIG Bonuses
Okay, up front, the huge bonuses being paid to the architects of their downfall is stupid. The contracts were badly thought out (or perhaps well thought out, in light of how they probably knew what was on the horizon) and are not helping anybody's case.
On the other hand, the congressional posturing is not bringing honor upon this administration.
On the third hand, people are expressing their outrage incorrectly, and the numbers are being waved around poorly. Innumeracy is not your friend!
Okay, 170B$ in bailout, and 165M$ in bonuses. OMG! HUGE bonuses for these idiots on the taxpayers dime!
Or, what it REALLY is is... $170,000,000,000 in bailout and $165,000,000 in bonuses. Let's stack these numbers up a bit:
$170,000,000,000 bailout
$165,000,000 bonus
That's 1/1000 of the bailout money in bonuses. I bet AIG loses that much in the seat cushions each year.
BUT! And there are several buts here (and butts, but that's a different story)...
that 170 Billion is not PAYROLL. How big is the AIG payroll? How big is it relative to the bailout? The bailout, I assume, is part of working capital (or whatever the eggheads call it; I'm fairly clueless), part of the insurance for the insurance as it were, to keep all of the value from vanishing in a poof of crappy decision making.
THAT is the number that counts; the bonus vs payroll.
Or maybe not. What we are REALLY being outraged about is the bonus being paid to these reckless losers versus real money in our pocket now. These numbers look more like this: $60,000 for working hard and doing the best we can when we can, versus $4,000,000 (more or less, to pick one number I heard as an individual bonus) for being a jackass in a huge company pissing away other hard working people's money. Let's stack these up:
$4,000,000 jackass
$60,000 working hard
See? THAT is where the outrage should come from and, viscerally, I'm sure that is the case. But all I'm seeing are the first numbers, badly stated, and in some cases, MIS-stated (randomly mixing millions and billions is bad, m'kay?)
On the other hand, the congressional posturing is not bringing honor upon this administration.
On the third hand, people are expressing their outrage incorrectly, and the numbers are being waved around poorly. Innumeracy is not your friend!
Okay, 170B$ in bailout, and 165M$ in bonuses. OMG! HUGE bonuses for these idiots on the taxpayers dime!
Or, what it REALLY is is... $170,000,000,000 in bailout and $165,000,000 in bonuses. Let's stack these numbers up a bit:
$170,000,000,000 bailout
$165,000,000 bonus
That's 1/1000 of the bailout money in bonuses. I bet AIG loses that much in the seat cushions each year.
BUT! And there are several buts here (and butts, but that's a different story)...
that 170 Billion is not PAYROLL. How big is the AIG payroll? How big is it relative to the bailout? The bailout, I assume, is part of working capital (or whatever the eggheads call it; I'm fairly clueless), part of the insurance for the insurance as it were, to keep all of the value from vanishing in a poof of crappy decision making.
THAT is the number that counts; the bonus vs payroll.
Or maybe not. What we are REALLY being outraged about is the bonus being paid to these reckless losers versus real money in our pocket now. These numbers look more like this: $60,000 for working hard and doing the best we can when we can, versus $4,000,000 (more or less, to pick one number I heard as an individual bonus) for being a jackass in a huge company pissing away other hard working people's money. Let's stack these up:
$4,000,000 jackass
$60,000 working hard
See? THAT is where the outrage should come from and, viscerally, I'm sure that is the case. But all I'm seeing are the first numbers, badly stated, and in some cases, MIS-stated (randomly mixing millions and billions is bad, m'kay?)