. Spinning .

Still on the subject of corporate pay, I’m seeking answers to the problem from my little bit of knowledge of keeping up on current affairs and from my small experience as a shareholder (not in AIG thank God). Many employees hold shares of their company and as such shareholders are sent usually quarterly or annual voting information. I used to throw these out, knowing that our tiny percentage of ownership amounted to spit in a pond. But that’s not exercising a right that could have an impact if everyone took it more seriously.

There’s always the usual blah blah blah to vote on, but there’s also the usual “disclosure of executive compensation” item that the Board “suggests you vote no” on. Well dammit, vote YES! If every employee with his lousy 100 shares in 100,000,000 voted, then maybe something could be done. The big guys are counting on your lack of confidence in your vote counting.

I’m by no means a proponent of multi-million dollar salaries for executives (nor for movie stars or ballplayers for that matter) but what’s at work here is ‘whatever the market will bear’ and no one is going to refuse the extra money. And the fact of life is that someone somewhere thinks these people are worth it; shareholders, moviegoers, sportsfans. Sometimes these people actually may be worth it; it ain’t easy running a global conglomerate that employs thousands of workers; maybe it ain’t easy to cry on cue for a camera either. And maybe it doesn’t seem fair that one may work hard and get paid 1/300th of the top guy but it’s not just hard work that’s being compensated. It isn’t fair to see some bimbo marry the CEO and walk away a few years later with a portion of his salary that easily translates to the annual salaries of hundreds of laid-off workers either. But life’s never been guaranteed as fair.

(NOTE: I keep updating this post because despite my best intentions to drop this whole matter I can’t get it out of my mind.)

It’s hard not to like President Obama, he’s down-to-earth, humorous, intelligent, and silver-tongued. Even as I cringe under the events of the last few months and the view of the next few years, I cannot help but like him as a person.

Last night with Jay Leno his performance showed me some points that scare me. Maneuvering around distasteful questions is one thing; I don’t blame him, all politicians do this, and he manages it much better than most. He also gave some clear and eloquent answers that gave me hope that he “gets” it, and his heart is possibly in the right place even if I don’t feel his responding actions are always there. The “I take responsibility” thing is overdone however, but it worked for Bill Clinton and I suppose it’s become the new mantra since all people want to know is who to blame and when someone steps up, the anger dissipates. Oh yeah, okay, well he says he’s responsible so whatever. What bothered me however is the one remark he made about the proposed 90% tax on bonus pay. While he seemed to acknowledge that it isn’t the right thing to do, his blase attitude of “so sue me” (reneging on the contracts) is such a typical lawyer tactic. It is so in conflict with his intention to spend trillions of dollars on education when education on ethical issues can be learned free by example.  Oh wait, maybe that’s not in conflict at all. What I see ahead is a near Big Brother scenario where the individual lack of responsibility evidenced today grows worse, is taken up by the government, and the learning of moral values is accepted as being out of the hands of parents and plopped into the realm of government via the education system.

I think that with all the rush to placate the public no one’s thought of what happens down the road. For one thing, the idea of taxation as a remedy really has nothing to do with the matter so the lessons are useless. If enacted, this new tax law, even if it recoups 90% of taxpayer money, does that mean that AIG only owes 10% of the remaining since surely there is no intent to not only get the money back through taxes but still insist upon that portion of the ‘loan’ being repaid. That’s double-payment.

See, the damage here was done not to taxpayers, but to taxpayers as stockholders, and that’s who the companies need to answer to unless there were specific strings attached to the original loans and bailout money. There’s legal remedy when the problem is approached from that angle. To put it another way, if you loan someone $100 because they claim their rent is due, and then prior to paying you back they throw a party, you can be rightly upset, but you have no recourse other than the terms of the loan–how and when it will be paid back. If, on the other hand, you buy into the apartment, you better know what you’re buying, the good and the bad. If parties are an established Friday night deal, then, well, you’ve got to bite the bullet or attempt to renegotiate.

At any rate, I find myself getting too wired up about the goings on, and as a friend recently posted a quote from Neil Postman: “The news elicits a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing” I find it too painful to keep banging my head against the walls. So it is time to retreat, retract, find a comfort zone and stray beyond its boundaries no more.

Well, they did it.

I am deeply saddened and find this action truly immoral.

I think I’m beginning to finally understand the concept of political correctness. In a Democratic administration, flub-ups are properly called “problems in a key relationship” whereas in a Republican reign, these are called lies, incompetence, and cover-ups.

Got it.

Actually a very productive day; shoe repair, laundry, emissions, grocery and bank and then, a few hours spent watching the committee grill Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG.

Overall impression of Mr. Liddy is that he was extremely professional, intelligent, and forthright in his answers. He made a decision and maybe it wasn’t the right one–and maybe it will prove to be just that in the end–and it was bound to raise the ire of the majority of the U.S. in that not only had they put up tax dollars to pay AIG folks great sums of money, but worse, that money just reminded everyone how some people make so much more money than they do. And if possible, even worse than that, the people getting the money weren’t ballplayers or movie stars.

Some of the committee members, although outraged themselves, found the grace to comprehend that Mr. Liddy was put into a very difficult situation to do a job and fix a dying conglomerate, gratis, and they asked good, tough questions. Some didn’t seem to do anything more than try to assure their voters that they were righteously irate. Some didn’t have a clue what was going on. Some sounded dumber than I would have in their comprehension and focus.

And some honestly didn’t know what was going on: like the Fed Reserve’s knowledge of the compensation payments months earlier; or Dodd’s closed meetings wherein maybe someone took out a clause that would have prevented those payments. I was glad to see Barney Franks suggest that the stockholders–in fact, the taxpayers and the government acting in that capacity–possibly was the way to try to recoup the money in that their investments were seriously depleted by the same executives who were rewarded so handsomely. It’s just what I’ve been saying all along and so much more honest than coming up with a cockamamie 90% tax rate.

All in all, it was a very interesting view of the process at work.

According to the news, investors who suffered losses due to Madoff’s fraudulent business practices and who paid taxes on phantom gains will be able to reclaim some of that tax money from the government (as is just and fair).

Reading the USA Today article I came to this:

“Investors in some of these cases are entitled to a “theft loss” deduction, not subject to the limits on normal capital losses from investments, according to the IRS guidelines, Shulman testified at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.”

Now I don’t know yet what the “theft loss” deduction includes, or how it’s worded but it sounds like a possibility to check if it would cover the scamming done by the AIG executives (and I’m not saying that they’re all guilty of either out and out plotting or mere incompetency in letting the company accrue such losses) under a class action suit either by investors or by the public under the umbrella of the U.S. government. Words that are tangled into secure knots are never easily, but always eventually capable of being unraveled.

I sure wish I had access to all the records in the Bernie Madoff case, and this is why I’m so interested in it–because obviously I’m neither an investor or one who cares what’s going on with someone else’s money–because I just love a good mystery that involves figures and accounting. And of course, boats and diamonds and mansions are interesting too.  Because of my anal nature, my meticulous methods and tenaciousness to leave no stone unturned and no penny turned into an adjusting entry, I’ll betcha I could find almost all of the 65 billion he stole. And for a cool 1% finders fee, I’d absolutely love to do it.

Okay, so maybe in the heat of reading about the executive bonus pay of 160 million I (and the rest of America, except perhaps for the executive wives and families) get a bit overexcited about seeking justice.

I’m sorry I suggested that we egg Liddy’s house.

And yes, I know I have no legal expertise or even the vaguest sense of law but I do know fair from unfair, and I do know from personal experience that 1) Liddy’s legal team likely wasn’t looking the contracts over to find a way out but rather to assure their bosses that they were airtight and 2) just because a lawyer passed the bar it doesn’t mean he has an ounce of common sense or hasn’t been disillusioned enough by the system to prefer to take the easy way out. I’ve fought based on contract wording and had four lawyers disagree or waffle on it until the judge stated that my argument was  unequivocally legally sound.

So, any chance of the taxpayers filing a class action suit against AIG’s executive officers and their cockamamie decisions that brought the company to near ruin and then turned around and did it again with taxpayer dollars?