What infuriates me the most is that their bonuses are being paid of out of our tax dollars. Given that it's just about tax time, and time for the annual rubbing of my face in the fact that the IRS doesn't recognize my marriage, this makes me extra angry. Mr Hydroceph (the other Mr. Hydroceph), in particular, gets f*cked by the feds--and not in the good way--because he's "single."
These assholes created radioactive financial "instruments" predicated in part on selling mortgages to people who had already demonstrated they couldn't be trusted with pocket change, and when it blew up in a great big mushroom cloud of financial armageddon, expected to be bailed out (socialized risk!) and get their bonuses (private gain!). And they continued to act like nothing had changed. Don't give me that crap about contracts not being renegotiable, or the deposit on those corporate jets non-refundable. You people screwed the pooch, and the rest of us are mad as hell.
@Hydroceph: Your marriage isn't recognized by the feds? Is it one of those common-law hillbilly things where Pa forced you with a shotgun and said "Make an honest woman outta that hussy," and now you share grain alcohol and firearms, living in a school bus in some compound in the Alleghenies with a dog named Mud?
@cdmunch: no, we're two of the gays--hence the "Other Mr. Hydroceph," the first one being yours truly. Our marriage is recognized by the state, but not by the feds. But yours sounds like an interesting anthropological expedition.
It's maddening class warfare... there are a lot of people sympathizing with these folks and still insisting that the entire collapse of the economy is the blame of poor brown people who bought houses THEY KNEW THEY COULDN'T AFFORD! Let the rich get richer....
I feel very content to be employed, driving around in my 12 year-old car and not living in a tent community (yet).
My husband gets a quarterly bonus. We don't count it as salary, we count it as a bonus. We use it for things like our son's elementary school tuition ($15,000), or buying a car...and actually live off his salary.
The author of the LJ post apparently "researches & builds 10th C music and instruments". So finally now you know where to go for your urgent lyre, harp and dulcimer needs.
@Wrapitup: That has to be a dead giveaway for everyone at Banque AIG office in London. -- Or is she often confused with Susan, one of the other kayaking wives of the AIG executives, the selfsame spouse who researches and builds Byzantine era musical instruments?
Disclaimer: I think that's a pretty great hobby, by the way.
"Do you leave in December and disrupt your children's education? Well, not without a very good reason."
I would say being shafted by your employer with an effective pay cut through an uncompensated overseas assignment, spending $30K a year for tuition and paying on a house you can't use are all very good reasons.
It is a mob -- and I don't think that's a good thing either.
This ought to provide the impetus for both sides -- banker and legislator -- to work together to come to an agreement on a stable pay regimen. I'm thinking the i-bankers might be a little more amenable now to structuring the labor laws toward a reasonable guaranteed salary and away from the unpredictability of "eat what you kill."
The city and state legislators, on the other hand, would benefit from avoiding wild fluctuations in their tax revenues.
I have to admit, however, that I can't sleep for the Schadenfreude.
These people make it sound like working for AIG in London was some kind of enormous hardship. If it was that bad, folks, why did you do it for years and years? You're smart people, I'm sure you could have gotten a job somewhere else if it was truly that onerous.
Or maybe, just maybe, you got a really good deal and made a boatload of money, and then when the company imploded, that's when you call out "no fair!"
@econdave: These people make it sound like working for AIG in London was some kind of enormous hardship. If it was that bad, folks, why did you do it for years and years? You're smart people, I'm sure you could have gotten a job somewhere else if it was truly that onerous.
We thought we had it rough when we had to downgrade to Alberto V05 shampoo! It's nothing compared to the plight of AIGers. Our hair may be cheaply conditioned but we still don't know the pain of 30k private school tuitions. Damn our lynch mob mentality and the high price of Pantene.
Any tax specific to the AIG bonus money would be an expost facto bill of attainder and therefore unconstitutional. So, fire away, but even a kangaroo court would throw it out.
03/27/09
These assholes created radioactive financial "instruments" predicated in part on selling mortgages to people who had already demonstrated they couldn't be trusted with pocket change, and when it blew up in a great big mushroom cloud of financial armageddon, expected to be bailed out (socialized risk!) and get their bonuses (private gain!). And they continued to act like nothing had changed. Don't give me that crap about contracts not being renegotiable, or the deposit on those corporate jets non-refundable. You people screwed the pooch, and the rest of us are mad as hell.
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/27/09
I feel very content to be employed, driving around in my 12 year-old car and not living in a tent community (yet).
03/27/09
03/27/09
Oh, sorry, did that make too much sense?
03/27/09
03/27/09
Actually I can't imagine that because regularly blow the landlord.
03/27/09
03/27/09
Disclaimer: I think that's a pretty great hobby, by the way.
03/27/09
03/27/09
Is he John Merrick? I mean, honestly...and wow, they are probably paying the salary of ONE TEACHER.
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/27/09
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03/27/09
I would say being shafted by your employer with an effective pay cut through an uncompensated overseas assignment, spending $30K a year for tuition and paying on a house you can't use are all very good reasons.
03/27/09
03/27/09
This ought to provide the impetus for both sides -- banker and legislator -- to work together to come to an agreement on a stable pay regimen. I'm thinking the i-bankers might be a little more amenable now to structuring the labor laws toward a reasonable guaranteed salary and away from the unpredictability of "eat what you kill."
The city and state legislators, on the other hand, would benefit from avoiding wild fluctuations in their tax revenues.
I have to admit, however, that I can't sleep for the Schadenfreude.
03/27/09
Or maybe, just maybe, you got a really good deal and made a boatload of money, and then when the company imploded, that's when you call out "no fair!"
03/27/09
and before their CVs turned toxic.
03/27/09
Damn our lynch mob mentality and the high price of Pantene.
03/27/09
03/27/09
That sounds almost as bad as getting paid based on page-views. Oh wai