Everybody is crying hoarse over the payment of $180 million as annual bonus to the AIG employees. On first reading, every aggrieved mind in this recession would. Why should the sinners be awarded?
This ‘should’ is such a big question that it can’t be answered on a single logic. I too would say that the bonus should not have been given, more as a crisis time response than as a contractual obligation. The big financial people out there are not aloof from this world, and they know the impacts of this recession. They also know that most of this is the output of their incompetent work. So, shouldn’t have they as a goodwill gesture or anything like that, refused to take it? I am talking philosophy here, and it is not what market and capitalism were/are built on. “Make money when there is blood on the street”- the saying still rules the roost.
But it becomes hyperbolical when we start faulting each and every Wall Street Financial Institutes employee for the collective mistake done. I or you too could have been one of them, and not conscientious enough to refuse these perks. The problem lies with the top officials who decided to distribute this money, knowing fully in advance that they are receiving a lot of money (famously called tax-payers money) from the government. Their argument that the bright employees will leave the company for greener pastures doesn’t seem totally convincing in this acute time of job-slinging. The fault also lies with the US Treasure Secretary Tim Geithner for not ensuring this before or after doling out the money.
In fact, the fault lies with many people. I am in full nod with this article ‘Let’s penalize all Culprits‘ by Swaminathan Aiyar. Again it is more subjective than objective, but as said above, the question ‘should’ can’t be looked through a single perspective only.
