AIG Mess

By now everyone knows about the AIG mess, they awarded $165 million of their portion of the bailout to employee bonuses. We now find out that 73 AIG executives received $1 million or more bonuses. AIG says that they had to give the executives bonuses due to contractual obligations. Sen. Chris Dodd (D) is trying to recoup some or all of the money by proposing a tax of the money. He is diligently working on this because during the $787 billion bailout negotiations last month he added a clause to the section referencing "executive bonuses" that read:

Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation: Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009. Due to this, AIG executives are exempt. Now he has his work cut out. More to follow because this is far from being over.