Here’s a Suggestion for AIG and Its $100 Million Bonus Plan
Courtesy of PETER COHAN at Daily Finance
The Washington Post reports that American International Group (AIG) is poised to pay workers in its Financial Products Group (FPG) a $100 million bonus today. FPG sold credit default swaps (CDSs), a form of bond insurance, without reserving against the possibility that it would have to pay claims on them. And that group is primarily responsible for America’s $182.3 billion AIG bailout in September 2008.
In a normal business, you pay bonuses to top-performing employees if the business earns a hefty profit. So, of course, AIG must have earned a profit, right? Not exactly. It lost $99 billion in 2008 and $5 billion in the first three quarters of 2009. So why do these people now deserve a bonus?
AIG defenders might argue that the $100 million bonus — an average of only $500,000 per employee — is a great deal because FPG’s 200 employees were originally scheduled for a nearly $200 million bonus this March after getting $168 million last year, according to the Post. Do the folks at FPG deserve even that $100 million for contributing to a company that has generated over $100 billion in losses in the last two years?
