The next thing would have been to call a staff meeting in every office the company had and use one of those new teleconferencing machines to put on a dog and pony show for all those rich employees waiting to be paid the $170,000,000.00 bonuses. On stage with the AIG officers and directors you would have the Senior Partner of the biggest bankruptcy law firm in the world. The CEO would have introduced him to all the employees, had him explain how he needed to get this done quickly since the Bankruptcy Court Clerk closed at 5:00 p.m. and he needed to get there soon if the employees did not agree to forgo their bonuses this year. He would assure everyone gathered they should agree to forgo the bonus this year in order for them to avoid the long arm of the Trustee in Bankruptcy taking the money they had already received from last year. He would promise them a note from the company for this years money to be paid at such time as the company had sufficient cash in retained earnings to pay the amount they were supposed to get this year without any additional interest. The employees would have started a stampede to sign up for the deferred money just to have the peace of mine that comes from keeping the money from last year they had already spent.
Our problem is people who have never been broke don't think like everyday people. These people charged with getting us out of this mess think they have got to make everybody 100% whole. The government does need to pay 100% of everything it owes, that is key to our continued position in a global economy. AIG and the other private companies are different. The people they owe are due to take a haircut just like the poor Joe's out of work because of the recession. AIG doesn't have the money. Why are AIG's creditors any more entitled to full payment than Sam's Hardware creditors that lost money when Sam's went belly up in the heartland? Bring Lee Iacocca out of retirement, Bill Glasscock is dead.
Give me a smart bankruptcy trustee like Phil Geddes and I could save the government enough to pay for at least one more war and give everybody a mule and forty acres
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