This reported on the BusinessWeek web site. “Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. paymaster for rescued companies, will exempt some executives at American International Group Inc. (AIG) from a $500,000 salary cap after at least five employees threatened to quit because of the limits, people familiar with the matter said.”
“A person close to Feinberg said the exceptions allowing for salaries greater than $500,000 were unrelated to the five executives’ threats to leave.” In other words Mr. Feinberg is being forced to back down from his ruling. There is no discussion of repaying the money all of us paid to prop up this “to big to fail” company.
There are no reports about this situation on any other web site. More money for the wealthy? Who cares? Feinberg will remove the salary cap and hope that Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, climate change meetings, and Afghanistan will bury this situation on page 23.
The Huffington Post reports that “AIG was rescued with a bailout valued at $182.3 billion. To date, the government has only received $19 million of the $45 million in retention payments AIG had pledged to repay.”
As I put all of this together there is only one conclusion that can be reached. Money does buy happiness. The wealthy never say “no” to the wealthy. Americans have agreed to a society that rewards greed. We got what we wanted.
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