AIG received $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts after reporting a loss of $61.7 billion in 2008. This is the greatest loss reported for any corporation, ever.
In 2009, AIG paid $218 million in bonus payments. 52 people receiving bonuses were no longer working for the company. Bonuses for the entire company could reach $1.2 billion. That’s Billion… with a “B”.
Using the $218 million figure, the amount of money given out in BONUS payments from the company that posted the greatest loss of any company in the history of Ever would be enough to pay my annual salary (which provides for a family of 4) for about 6,500 years. Another way to put that is four people can live for a year on 1/6,500th of what AIG paid to employees—and ex-employees—in bonuses after reporting the Greatest Loss Of Any Corporation In The History Of The Planet.
The CEO of AIG during this time, Edward M. Liddy, received an annual salary of $1. He received an allowance of $460,000 to cover “housing, travel, taxes and legal fees.” Non-wage incomes are taxed at a significantly lower rate than earnings reported from wages. “Allowances” are non-wage incomes and, often, are not taxed at all. After receiving $84 billion in government loans to protect his company from “insolvency” in October of 2008, Liddy took the top-performing insurance salesmen for AIG to the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, which included $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 in meals and $23,000 for the spa. The amount of money spent on meals ALONE would pay for my family of four to eat anything they wanted from Outback Steakhouse, including seafood, steaks and alcohol, for three meals a day for a year, and at the end of the year, the amount of money we didn’t spend—about $100 a day—would be enough for us to live on for the next year.
These are facts. There’s no emotion here. Just numbers and facts. But I do find it helpful to break down these huge numbers into tasty, reality-sized portions so you can actually start to comprehend just how monumentally we’re all being fucked.
Sources (so my mother doesn't think I'm making all this up):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIG_bonus_payments_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_M._Liddy
http://taxmantra.com/ereturns/other/cost-living-allowances-taxability.html
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97187,00.html
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