Juan Gonzalez / Democracy Now!
One of the more under (read: non)-reported stories of the week – that will and should piss you off – was this one:
“The Treasury Department approved pay packages worth $5 million or more for 49 executives at a handful of firms that received the biggest taxpayer bailouts between 2009 and 2011.”
Why should this piss you off? Well, as Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News and Democracy Now points out:
“A scathing new audit this week by the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program blasted those payments, all of which occurred despite a $500,000 salary cap that President Obama and Congress established in 2009 at firms receiving “exceptional assistance” under TARP.”
One of those recipients was Robert Benmosche, the CEO of AIG, you know, the firm that insured all of the toxic mortgage assets that the Wall Street thug banksters played supreme air hockey with, which caused the housing bubble and the ensuing economic collapse of 2008; the firm that received $180 billion in bailout money and is still 70% owned by the taxpayers. Benmosche received a whopping $10.5 million package in 2009, 2010 and 2011, with each yearly package including $3 million in cash.
How did they pull this off?
Blackmail:
“Backed by top Treasury aides, AIG argued that unless it got those raises, key people would leave and the government would not get its money back.
“What’s more, AIG wanted those salaries in cash, not stock.”
AIG’s execs aren’t the only ones who scored. General Motors, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial, and Allied Financial all received similar, infuriating packages, with the CEO of Allied bitching and moaning about the “injustice” done to one of his executives, as Gonzalez explained on Democracy Now:
“Yes, at one point, the CEO of Allied Financial complained that one of his executives was being reduced from a million to $500,000 a year, and he said that that executive would be made cash poor, because he had a couple of kids in private school, and he wouldn’t be able to meet his monthly bills on a salary of only $500,000 a year.”
Excuse me whilst I wipe away the tears from my eyes…
Piece of advice to this poor, unfortunate soul executive: DOWNSIZE and DEAL! Tighten your belt like the rest of us have had to do, jackass!
Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so harsh. I forgot…they’re special talent.
Special, as in, everything they touch turns to shit for everyone else except them.
By the way, Allied’s CEO, Michael Carpenter, received a package worth $8.1 million.
And they say the system’s not rigged against the 99%, but as Gonzalez aptly states at the end of his piece:
“All that talk about limiting pay at companies the taxpayers bailed? It was just that — talk.”
WATCH Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman discuss on Democracy Now:
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