Quick-fix to "The Bonus Problem."

[Atman]

A 98.9% tax on any bonus income received from any company who receives government bailout money.

It would immediately take away any incentive to either give OR receive the money.

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[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. It would be retroactive, too

so AIG couldn't get away with this.

[KharmaTrain]

2. This Whole Thing Is a Joke...

As Josh Marshall and others have pointed out, if AIG is bankrupt, or has filed for re-organization, those contracts mean ZERO. Let the bastards who screwed up most of our lives try and collect from a bankruptcy judge.

I like your idea...but why should they get a dime for such incompetence and criminality. Also, taxing won't do good for those wheelers and dealers in London who did a lot of the derivitives trading and, besides our money going to foreign banks, sending the IRS into the fray won't have much affect.

The ultimate jurors here will be the stockholders and others who can and will take AIG to court and sue their asses off. Sadly, there's no cajones in this government to stand up to the big FU these banks are giving to the public. These people have no shame...just greed. You don't reward them, you deprive them of their drug...cold turkey!

[Belial]

3. Couldn't do bankruptcy.. remember?

Who were we going to force to bankruptcy? Some and not others? If that had happened the automakers would have been forced to do it as well..

[gratuitous]

4. Has Richard Shelby been notified?

I seem to recall his high dudgeon at the exorbitant salaries being paid to some auto workers. Is he out there yawping about a direct taxpayer handout to a bunch of market manipulators, thieves and con artists? I mean, at the end of the line in an auto assembly plant, you at least get a shiny new car; what do we get at the end of the line from AIG?

[customerserviceguy]

5. I heard this morning

that most of the PIG bonus money went to the London rogue operation that created most of the high risk fairy dust 'securities' in the first place. We'd have trouble taxing that, but perhaps it could come out of money that we ship to the UK.

[Atman]

6. There's gotta be a law someplace. But everyone else went broke, too.

The money that's "lost" disappeared on paper. They only have the money they have now, and that's the money we gave them. We could just withhold the money and say "fuck you" to them and see if the UK wants to start a war or something. That'd sure be fun!

:hi:

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[Naturyl]

7. Sounds like a winner to me. (n/t)