Mar 19 2009
Hand me my golden parachute - it’s time to bail out!
The latest American economic uproar centers around AIG and their (mis)use of government stimulus money. By now, we’ve all heard about Christopher Dodd’s part (then denial of his part) in the language which protects contracted bonuses. While I understand that a company does not want to risk its credibility with its employees by not following the contract, I also find that it’s hard to maintain credibility as a company by misusing government funds and consequently going bankrupt. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time a company had reneged on a contract with an employee.
But my blog would be redundant if I simply regurgitated the outrage that we have already seen on television and in our own homes. In keeping with my youthful, idealistic nature, I would like to come up with a solution to this problem. One option is to tax the hell out of those bonuses, but as one of the goats in the pasture pointed out, one can easily get around that tax by taking advantage of the one-time opportunity to give (tax free) up to $100,000 to one’s spouse. It’s too late to change the wording in this particular stimulus package, but we can always catch the next one…
No, that’s a bit too Pollyanna, even for me. Perhaps we could take advantage of this mass media uprising and put social pressure on these executives to put at least SOME of this money back into the community - I’m sure the Future Business Leaders of America could use some scholarships (after all, our current business leaders are beyond redemption). Or perhaps we could mandate that all bonuses come with a mandatory workshop on how to keep your company afloat, even if that means you can’t buy a new Porsche this year.
As a disadvantaged American in these troubled times, I have a major problem with the way this crisis is being handled. The companies should not be allowed to do whatever they want with money designed for a specific purpose - to keep these very companies running. Nor should the government be so far in these pockets that they cannot word their legislation in a way which best benefits the people who elected them.
