I don’t think I have watched Jay Leno in at least five years, nor do I watch Letterman – except for when he went afterJohn McCain during the campaign. I did have to tune in this past week, however, when the President dropped by for a visit. Unlike the rest of the world, I will not comment on his unfortunate gaff about the Special Olympics, a mistake that will haunt him for months, but one that proves that even Harvard Law graduates can misspeak on occasion — wow, what a shock.
What I really enjoyed most was Leno’s half serious suggestion that we tell the AIG execs who maintain that the company was contractually obligated to pay them multi-million dollar bonuses that they’re not getting them — and that if they don’t like it, "sue me." Why not give it a shot?
Before becoming an educator five years or so ago, I spent 25 years in the legal world. One of my responsbilities from time to time was drafting, negotiating and approving executive compensation agreements, most of which (including my own) provided for bonuses. Those bonuses, however, were almost always tied directly to company, or division, or department, or personal performance and the attainment of certain goals. And, they were almost always discretionary. Automatic bonuses were always viewed, by me at least, as just deferred income.
So now at AIG, as well as at other almost defunct companies who are stayng afloat thanks to public funds, executives are receiving fat bonuses tht were contractually required even though the decisions those folks made resulted in the loss of billions of dollars. We are being told that some of these "required" bonuses were paid to executives in order to retain their expert services – except that some of them had aleady left the company – and the ones that hadn’t….where are they going to go in this market.. and with what on their resume…"I worked for AIG and am partially responsible for the loss of $100 billion or so"?
Why don’t we take Jay Leno’s half serious suggestion? Tell them to stick their bonuses "where the sun don’t shine," and when they threaten us, tell them "If you don’t like it, sue me" — or in this case, "sue us" — the US government. And, since court papers are public documents, we will open to the press the names, addresses, etc., of all the overpaid fat cats who are filing the lawsuits so they can spend whatever is left of their money — whatever they didn’t invest with Bernie Madoff — on dark glasses, disguises and security guards. It might be fun watching the crowds of unemployed people wait for them when they arrive at the courthouse to argue that they’re entitled to $2,000,000 bonus after losing a few billion of other people’s money thanks to their ill conceived investment vehicles. Thanks, Jay, great idea. Now let’s see if the government has the balls to do it.