Incompetent Or Insane ?

I must admit I am flabbergasted by the hutzpah of the giant financial and insurance corporation known as AIG. Their financial division screws up so bad that the company nearly goes belly-up. The only thing that saves the company is a bailout of billions of dollars from the federal government.

It can be argued whether the bailout should have happened, but the fact is that it did. I would have thought the company would have learned something from its close call, but evidently they didn't. They are now wanting to pay out $2.4 million in executive bonuses next week.

That would be bad enough, but they are also seeking permission to pay out an additional $235 million in bonuses to the very financial division that nearly ruined the whole company! They are calling these "retention bonuses", saying they need to pay the bonuses to retain these employees.

Now I don't know about you readers, but if I had screwed up so bad it nearly put my employer out of business, I would have been fired. I certainly wouldn't have received a bonus to encourage me to stay on the job. How on earth can AIG even consider paying these guys any kind of bonus? Is AIG leadership just incompetent or totally insane?

Personally, I don't think any company that has received any government bailout money should be allowed to give even a penny in bonus to any employee, until every nickel of the government has been repaid.

It sounds to me like AIG has $237.4 million that they don't need. That money should be used to repay the taxpayers of the United States. We didn't bailout that company so incompetent executives could get rich while we pay higher taxes!

AIG Starts "Rebranding" Effort

I expected this to happen, but it's just happening a little quicker than I expected. AIG Corporation has decided that there's just too many negative connotations to it's current name, and they have begun a process to "rebrand" the corporation. They hope a new name will help to bring back some customers -- because who wants to say they're doing business with AIG?

Here in Amarillo, the AIG signs have already come down. If you drive by the corporation's local offices, you won't see any signs that say AIG. I expect new signs with a new name will go up in a few days (or weeks).

John Pulhowski, spokesman for AIG Retirement Services, said, "AIG announced a major restructuring earlier this month that will help position its businesses, like AIG Annuity, to run more independently and our decision to remove signage from our buildings reflects the strategy. We expect by June 1 of this year AIG Annuity will be rebranded to a familiar name, Western National Life."

Western National Life. That doesn't sound anything like AIG, does it? I expect it will fool a lot of people, especially after things settle down a little bit. Can't say I blame the company though.

Right now, I would rather do business with the Bush-Madoff Bubonic Plague Memorial House of Thievery, Scams and Pyramid Schemes than spend a penny with AIG.