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AIG Chief Threatens to Resign
Robert Benmosche, the chief executive of American International Group, Inc., told the board that he is "done" and is contemplating quitting a mere three months after taking the job. The issue rankling Benmosche is the constraints placed on the company by Obama administration pay czar Kenneth Feinberg ever since the company became 80 percent owned by the government after its rescue last year. Last week, Benmosche, who was particularly put out about a Treasury pay review that cut executive compensation by 91 percent from 2008 levels, joined with other board members to complain to Feinberg about how difficult it was to comply with pay policies and to retain talent. It's unclear whether Benmosche will make good on his threat, as he swore he'd step down in August over a pay kerfuffle with the Treasury Department, a feud that ended when the Treasury finalized his $10.5 million package, the largest approved under the recent rules on executive pay.
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n--Y--squareyellowpaperThis user is no longer registered.
n--Y--squareyellowpaperwfleet
Are you telling me we can't get superb and hungry talent for $200,000 a year? Piffle. Triple piffle. What we're really paying for here is colossal ego.
Hmm -- there's even an acronym for it! Colossal Ego Officer.
Orcnelf
Talent? What talent?
BillCooper
Gee, we may lose the "top talent" that caused the company to circle the drain and needed the taxpayers to mortgage our children's futures to bail them out. F**k him, f*ck them, and the horse they rode in on.
Demsdisorder
well said
hockeydog
Bill, you made my day with that 'circle the drain' image.
And, while we American peons appreciate the sentiment,
we also remember that the money paid to these insurance
types, while distasteful, are a mere pittance compared
to the hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses being
skimmed by the Goldman Sachs bandits and their
brethern.
ShelleyStark
It is not an idle threat. He may very well leave and ruin someone else's economy. Bank executives like Goldman Sachs Gary D. Cohn earn as much as 72.5 million in bonuses. Under such working conditions being imposed he would now only get a little over 6.5 million. How low do you expect a guy to sink?
PS. Google Hidden Treuhand - do you really think these guys are paying taxes on all this money? - learn the trick - how to really make money
DragonScorpion
To Robert Benmosche: Just let us know if you need any help finding the door.
As for the government. While they're at it with limiting these disgusting pay bonuses, they need to break up AIG, too!
polako1
Good ridance to bad garbage!!
FatFreddy
If I'm not mistaken, Benmosche is working for $1. Benmosche was practically appointed by the government to "wind-down" AIG. However, the 20 or so employees of AIG's Financial Products Division, the ones that created the mess, are still employed and making huge salaries and bonuses. Benmosche's argument is that they need these people to undo the mess because they are the only ones that know how to because they created it.
I find this argument extremely lazy in nature. Let me give you an example from a personal experience. I work in construction. I own my own company. I was working on a job some years ago, when the electrical contractor's employee that he had on the job suddenly quit. All of the basic wiring was finished, and all the walls had been installed. The only thing really left, was to install the circuit breakers at the box. Well, for whatever reason, the electrician that wired the house, never bothered marking any of the wires at the box. He was the only person that knew which wires were for which circuits. The electrical contractor was extremely upset, as you can imagine. My point is, that the contractor was eventually able to trace all the wires and unravel the mess the former employee had created. It took a lot of extra time, effort and money, but in the long run, the contractor was better off not having an employee that cut corners.
johnsmith1882
Benmosche's salary is $3 million in cash, $4 million in shares, and as much as $3.5 million in incentives (according to Bloomberg). His predecessor was the one working for $1. Even if this man took a 90% pay cut, he would be making $700,000/year (not including incentives). I hardly feel sympathy.
revcat
Oh, thanks, you answered my question. No sympathy from me either.
revcat
I think the guy before him worked for $1, not sure this guy is?
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n--Y--squareyellowpaperPhilMcRoin
I don't remember ever buying trickle down economics, and I don't think many people really did.. everyone knows the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, its one of the basic rules of civilization... and it has been going on for many more than 25 years...
the rules on corporations need to be taken back to the way the founding fathers set it up.. For a hundred years after United States became the United States, no corporation was allowed to get a charter unless it could prove that it served the public interest. charters came up for renewal every ten years or so... That all changed with a Supreme Court ruling that made corporations equivalent to individuals in the late 1880s ...and now in the supreme court they are trying to finish the job, giving them first amendment rights
ShelleyStark
The trust problem has superseded the corporate problem. While a corporation is granted by the State, the trust is created in the dark recesses of the law office. I am a legal researcher from Vienna Austria and recently wrote a book called: Hidden Treuhand: How Corporations and Individuals Hide Assets and Money. Tax havens in Europe offer the means to do business quasi-legally worldwide with anonymity. My recent article in the Tax Justice Network explains more. I translated law from German to English to document this phenomenon, thus it is not conspiracy theory as one quipped on Amazon reviews.
Legal quote: "The routine relevant function of a Hidden Treuhand has the intended purpose to make something confidential, for example, the identity of the owner of an asset or a business relationship from the outside world."
Think what can be accomplished doing short-selling US dodgy debt, insider-trading, hedge funds. Google this and see for yourself.
IDubious
Could it be that all of the above have missed the larger picture?
Well, no.
The populace has reached French Revolution mad and corporate greed reacts with" let them eat..."
FatFreddy
...shit?
hockeydog
"let em eat...
bird droppings?
TWBBug
This is prolly bogus just to form YOUR opinion but if true, I say don't let the door hit ya in the ass.
nick1936
Now comes the real test how long will it take Obama to fire tis ass??????????????
Demsdisorder
I have a idea.... lets put Chris Dodd in charge. then we can get him out of CT
svivar9087
What a whinnig little wus, why doesn't he show us what he's got to offer or had, once upon a time.
Allguns
Let me ask you this, when your sick and need a doctor to fix you up who would you rather go to, the doctor who got his degree in the Mexican School of Culinary Arts and Medical Degrees or the guy who went to Harvard and is considered one of the top 20 in his field in the world? Sometimes you have to pay people for what they are worth. I don't hear people complaining when they pay some sports star 100 million. If you want talent, your going to have to pay for it, because if you don't, someone else will.
revcat
The sports stars get paid excessively but last I heard they weren't bailed out by the government as in we the people (taxpayers!) so it's not a good comparison. America has made CEOs into kings, they think they are entitled. Well, if their company had to be bailed out by us they are no longer entitled to live like kings. They can scale back a bit and still live very, very well - greedy bastards.
JalapenoBob
Sports stars may be "paid excessively," but their careers are often very short. After only a few years or after some injuries, their bodies can no longer perform as well and they must find a new career. These "Chief Ego Offals" can collect these obsenely large paychecks for decades with no physical risks.
In a related story, the Federal Reserve is reporting that banks are having a hard time making money and, as a result, are raising fees on credit cards and checking accounts. What they should do, is cut executive salaries and benefits, instead.
MajorRevisions
Are you saying these guys are worth the money? These guys are in these position because of who they know not what they know.
At least pro athelets usually have a talent and are paid on results. They are also over paid, that's a complaint by the way. We may help them by building their stadiums but at least we don't have to bail them out.
vivisection
I'm shocked by how puerile the sentiments expressed here are. Quality of executive leadership is one of the most important factors influencing a company's success and its valuation. This is why large companies invest large resources on recruiting and retaining executives (not to mention multi-variable succession plans that can be more complex than the presidential succession plan). When there is uncertainty or high turnover in the leadership of a company, confidence in the performance of that company drops (think of what would happy to the price of Apple stocks, if Steve Jobs suddenly drops dead). Whether a 8-figure pay package is necessary can be debated, but the fact of the matter is that the people who have risen to this position do possess unique skills that no one who has not been that position can understand or replicate, and in certain cases they are worth every penny of their pay. Sure, for the same amount of money you can probably get the entire population of a 3rd world country on the AIG payroll, but we the taxpayer can kiss the investment in AIG goodbye because it will be worthless.
I simply don't understand how people's thirst for blood can so overpower reason. As owner of 80% of any company, we should be advocating for the measures that will promote its prosperity. Instead, the opinion of people on this board would rather lynch the very same people that are working towards repaying their debt to the tax payer. Incredible!
Thank you.
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