AIG CEO Says Outrage Over Wall Street Bonuses ‘Was Just As Wrong’ As Lynchings In The Deep South
Source: Think Progress
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, AIG CEO Bob Benmosche came out with the worst analogy for the 2009 financial crisis. Benmosche compared public outrage over AIG’s bonuses to the Deep South lynching African-Americans. “It was just as bad and just as wrong,” he said, because employees were used to a certain way of living:
“Now you have these bright young people (in the financial-products unit) who had nothing to do with (the bad bets that hurt the company.) … They understand the derivatives very well; they understand the complexity. … They’re all scared. They (had made) good livings. They probably lived beyond their means. …They aren’t going to stay there for nothing.
The uproar over bonuses “was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that–sort of like what we did in the Deep South (decades ago). And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong.
It’s been five years since AIG was rescued with a $85 billion loan from the government after the mega-insurer mismanaged itself to near collapse, and it’s hard to see how they were victimized, let alone “lynched.” Since then, AIG has expressed its gratitude by paying executives $165 million in bonuses, briefly considering suing the government for more, and expressing disappointment AIG never received a “thank you” from government officials.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/09/24/2671131/aig-bonus-outrage-lynching/
= new reply since forum marked as read
It'd be nice if history repeated!!! About time people woke up to these rogues....we don't need them and their conniving schemes that just redistribute wealth upwards....just sack 'em ....the new people could not possibly do any worse...haven't the top ten hedge fund managers had bonuses exceeding $1,000,000,000 collectively....not bad work if you can get it....
You however not only survived your company's "lynchings", but continue to waste air by making asinine statements.
Please do us taxpayers who bailed your company out a favor and STFU. 
just kidding, kinda 
So this will have to do: 
just like serial killers and rapists are USED TO their crimes, we should be providing them with more victims, and saying thank you while we do...
just in case someone is clueless..
"I do think that the compensation package that we've seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance."
"I know both those guys" and "they're very savvy businessmen."
But these greedy bastards are succeeding by slaying the American workers. Their success comes with a very heavy price.
He's the same a-hole who said over a year ago that the governments of Europe and the US should consider raising the retirement age to 70 - 80 years old because people live longer now than in the past.
When he was the CEO of Met Life he outsourced around 10,000 jobs. I have heard from someone who worked there that the company hasn't been the same since. He was in retirement when the board of AIG offered him the job a couple of years ago. He is decimating the employees there too. They are quietly sending hundreds of jobs to the Philippines.
For his efforts, he was rewarded recently with a $13M bonus. The immorality of it all makes me sick!!!
Investment bankers were the real victims of the financial collapse, not the perps. And the Pope's a Protestant. And the Civil War wasn't about slavery. And (fill in the blank).
yup... 
worry his ugly big head. He's a Baron and he's bitching about the food like he's a peasant. 
[/IMG]
It gets worse:
Bad DU, bad!
Y'all are just plain mean!
Please, stop abusing these poor guys.
BTW, will rich white guys ever stop trying to get a free ride off of blacks and the civil rights movement?
Guess who he worked for?
Yup! That's right. AIG! They sold credit default swaps (CDS), an insurance on the mortgage bonds that paid off if the bond defaulted. The Wall Street Banks then repackaged the CDS's into new mortgage bonds since the CDS effectively duplicated the risk of the original mortgages. They did this because they made huge amounts of commission and bonusses on bond sales and the mortgage originators couldnt supply enough product. Cassano, the head of AIG FP, sold so many credit default swaps to the Wall Street banks that when housing prices collapsed and the mortgages began going into default when their teaser rates expired, a huge number of the credit default swaps came due, all at once. If AIG can't honor those insurance payments the Wall Street Banks book losses on the bonds based on those CDS's at the same time. The whole world economy collapses within days. We were that close to the edge of a very real cliff in Sept-Oct 2008.
And here is the douche bag himself:
How this guy isn't in prison for life is beyond me. (Along with Fuld, Dimon, Blankfein, Mack, Lewis, Pandit, and the rest of the thugs.)
How can anyone be so stupid as to make a statement like that?
As far as stupid statements go, you'll think you've heard it all; but someone in the news will eventually let you know otherwise.
The shootee apologizing to the shooter.
