AIG

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by lookout123

No, I'm not on their side. I tink some people who made really bad decisions are going to get paid a lot of money. BUT if they fulfilled their end of a legal agreement it would be wrong not to pay them the agreed upon fee. You may argue the agreement was foolish and I would agree. You may argue they don't deserve the money and I would agree. You may argue that a lot of people deserve to lose their jobs and I would agree. You may argue that they are to blame for all the ills of the world and in some cases I might agree. That is all just dressing though. The point is we are invested in a company. We should want to see the company succeed so we get our money back. Companies that have chosen not to pay agreed upon bonuses when requirements were fulfilled will not be a target destination for top notch employees. When the bad deciders are shown the door good employees must be found to replace them. Don't cut your throat just for the sake of punishing some asshats.

And for the record, you haven't been debating people like me for two years about a recession. A quick scan of my market comments over the last few years would quickly prove the inaccuracy of your statement. And yes, I do make my money as a financial advisor. I'm ok at it or at least my clients who are comfortably retired and unconcerned about the economy seem to think.

When companies go bankrupt, they are forced to restructure. Bad employees are replaced with good ones. While everyone in that division of AIG might not have contributed to the downfall of the company, obviously some of them did. When we bailed out the auto companies, the unions and workers and executives were forced to make concessions. Many of our banks were too. They even sold some of their private planes. So what makes AIG different? Please explain that to me. It's not.

Yes, markets may not have indicated we were in a recession over the past two years, but if you looked at what was happening to the middle class, and if you looked at other clues, it was very apparent we were heading toward financial disaster. I wouldn't say collapse, because that would be a lie, I didn't see that coming, but it was very apparent we were in trouble. While the people I was debating may not have been financial advisors (I don't know if they were or not), they all disparaged my intelligence on economic issues, and in general. Well, ultimately, I was right and they were wrong. I am not trying to imply that I know everything because I don't. I have never even taken a course in economics, but I am not stupid. I am actually pretty bright. And in those cases, I apparently knew more than they did, not because I am an economic genius, but because I simply observed what was happening to people around me and around the country, and I made deductions based on those observations.