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The Scandal of the AIG Bonuses

And the gospel of incomprehensible unfairness.

Mark Galli | posted 3/19/2009 12:31PM

On the surface, it sounds like a healthy company was rewarding its best and brightest. Over 400 employees recently received bonuses. Three-fourths of the company received more than $100,000. Fifty-one ...

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PA	Posted: March 30, 2009 7:48 AM

What you have termed "incomprehensible unfairness" we used to call "the theory of gross inequities" back in the machine shop I used to work in. That was in the late 70s. The West, particularly the church in the West, has learned little if anything in the intervening years. BTW, those who would spin this situation as having a political solution probably think Jesus was a Republican (or Democrat, for that matter). Politics is only a symptom. We need to grow up... a lot.

Shannon

Posted: March 27, 2009 11:02 PM

First off, many of these bonuses were paid out to executives no longer with the company, so there goes the "we need them to retain the best and brightest" argument. Second off, assuming these people quit, where are they going to go? Can you imagine their resume? "x-2009 - ran AIG into the ground to the point it had to be nationalized". And let us not forget this whole thing is the fruit of evangelical votes. Thanks for the credit crisis, fundies. And Ken - I don't know which is dumber, defending AIG bonuses or using it to make some inane point about "grace".

Lamarr

Posted: March 27, 2009 12:43 PM


LOVE IT! The responses show that part of your intent came across - OUTRAGE! HOW COULD THEY! But unfortunately it is coming across as 'OUTRAGE - HOW COULD YOU' :) I believe you are pointing us to Jesus to mark the point that we should be that outraged, at least that excited, about His bonuses given to us... we get all worked up about the wrong thing far too often...

George T.

Posted: March 24, 2009 8:50 PM


All this scandal,which other companies share and the taxpayer pays is all about: The Sin Of GREED.

bill	Posted: March 24, 2009 5:55 PM


The way I understand it the incompetent BIG SHOTS were fired. The retention agreement (bonus) was for the deserving? B.S.'s. I appreciated the article-- helped meself remember the whole MAT. 7 discourse. Not to forbid criticism,opinions or the condemnation of wrongdoing. Jesus hard presses us over the spirit of faultfinding that overlooks one's own shortcomings while assuming role of judge.

john	Posted: March 24, 2009 1:42 AM


log in

Trier

Posted: March 23, 2009 10:01 AM

I understand the analogy being made, but it is a terrible faulty one. If you view the cross as primarily resolving legal issues (God's justice demands a payment for sin), the problem with the analogy is that there has been no justice here. Christ voluntarily pays the price and we receive riches based on the cross. In the AIG case, the taxpayers pay the price, under threat of economic Armageddon, but there is no justice. So the analogy really says that its acceptable for a few to rob God. Even if you move away from legal metaphors for atonement, you appear to be saying that the very evils that the cross triumphs over are actually the blessings we receive. I know the author of this article is way smarter then to mean either of these two, but I don't think the theology of scandal was thought through in this case.

Mark Galli

Posted: March 23, 2009 9:47 AM


At the risk of repeating myself, and to clarify confusion among a few readers: I am NOT making any recommendations about how to handle the AIG crisis, nor do I pretend to understand the financial complex financial dynamics involved. The AIG scandal is, to me, a metaphor for the scandal of the Cross.

Richard Shepard

Posted: March 23, 2009 8:59 AM

I'm not so sure we are "sojourners in a foreign land." God created the heavens and earth and called them "good". He then gave the earth to mankind, before the fall. If there is a problem here, if the earth is no longer "good", it is because of our own sin. Mortimer Adler once said that America does not fix its problems, it leaves them behind. Perhaps its time for us to realize that that is ultimately a self-destructive worldview. Perhaps as well, the failure of AIG was what God intended for the beginnings of a period of rebuilding, and the bailout is nothing but an a frustration of God's purpose.

TimG	Posted: March 23, 2009 5:34 AM


The real tragedy is that NO ONE seems to think Congress might have a hand in this. There is evidence that both Congress and the Administration knew this was in the bailout paperwork, and they for sure knew it as early as March 3rd. We need to wake up and really consider who we elect.

David Karwoski

Posted: March 21, 2009 10:46 PM

After reading this article my main concern is you don't have a clue what a biblical worldview is. I wonder if you voted for Obama and democrats in the last election. The folks that caused this mess at AIG in the first place are gone. Folks were brought in from other sectors of AIG to help fix/minimize the loss and save the company. Democrats put the bonuses in the stimulus bill that was supported only by liberals and democrats. (THEY DIDN"T EVEN READ IT) that is criminal in itself. Lrd Jesus wake up your church. It was the church that gave Obama his victory in November. The most pro abortion, pro homosexual president in our nations history. We will stand before the Lord and give an account for voting for candidates who refuse to support biblical principles. Proverbs 29:2

CJ	Posted: March 21, 2009 11:21 AM

We should keep the scandal of grace where it belongs, in the Gospel. The AIG situation is contrary to Proverbial wisdom (Prov 6:1-5; 13:21), even an attempt to subvert Proverbial wisdom. If Congress did not want the bonuses, they shouldn't have put them in the stimulus package. To take them from people to whom they were contractually obligated is morally wrong. To legislate against individuals is (the 90% tax on the bonuses) is a fearful thing.

Anonymous

Posted: March 21, 2009 8:36 AM

This article is a classic example of using an analogy about a subject of which you are ignorant (business, apparently) and then wondering how your readers got it so wrong. I totally agree that the author was trying to get us to understand radical grace of which we believers are totally undeserving recipients....but in the mean time, I suggest the author try to learn a little about a situation (the people getting the bonus were not the people who put the company in bankruptcy, the reasons for the bankruptcy are a bit more complicated than the author assumes and do have to do with some bullying on our government's part) and if confiscatory taxes can be demanded on this week's unpopular group, they can be demanded on next week's...say for example, all Christians who truly believe in the incarnate birth should lose all their income....we become then a nation without true law. I also must say this article is a good example of why I no longer subscribe to CT

Dan	Posted: March 21, 2009 7:17 AM


I agree with Dan. AIG has become the biggest money laundering scheme of all time. Taxpayer money is being sent to overseas banks to bail THEM out, while we spend more and more money into bailouts of companies that haven't even paid their own taxes. We should be mad as hell at how corrupt congress has become. They people are being schtooped.

Dan	Posted: March 21, 2009 7:10 AM

I have to agree with tekel. This AIG thing is a drop in the bucket. This is David Copperfield economics. There are billions being sent to foreign banks and Goldman Sachs where there won't be any "government control" of it. The bottom line is Congress is not representing the people any longer and the "greater good" is distorted. Politicians are buying constituencies to keep themselves employed and while they fill their own coffers. And the mainstream media is pulling the lease of the public. Obama is just a player in the game of "One World Government." And a fiercely competitive player.

Jenifer

Posted: March 20, 2009 7:58 PM


Thank you for this article and putting it in place for me. I love the analogy and helping me realize there is more here than our little economies of this planet! I do have a thing or two to say to our government but that will have to wait while I let this article sink in with God's help. Thank you Mark.

Bruce

Posted: March 20, 2009 2:09 PM

The time of international scandal may have been over before it started. The basis for the American economy is trust, and who better to build trust than practicing Christians. So we built trust in our businesses as well as our institutions. In the post-Christian era we still need trust because that is essential for commerce (just think of what we would do without trust in the paper dollar bill) but we have left the Biblical basis for trust. That trust is each individual's trust in God and may neighbor's trust that I will act like in line with Biblical principles. Hence we will do everything we can to suppress scandal and give at least the appearance of a trustworthy business world. Instead of scandal it should be a time of Christians stepping up to be Christians in the marketplace.

Chip Watkins

Posted: March 20, 2009 1:58 PM

First, one should be reticent to comment about compensation paid without being familiar with the payor's business and the contracts it has made with its employees. This is especially true in the current "clouded" circumstances. And Psalm 15:4 requires the keeping of oaths even when it is disadvantageous to do so. This includes "foolish" oaths, such as Jephthah's, described in Judges 11. Second, the "outrage" expressed by so many in Congress about the bonuses is a "full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over" (Luke 6:38) of hypocritical self-righteousness. At least some of those people knew that the bonuses were due to be paid. And finally, none of this would be an issue if the Government had not foolishly (and perhaps unconstitutionally) transferred $175 billion to AIG--not to mention hundreds of billions more to other companies--instead of allowing them all to go through bankruptcy--the long-established method for addressing such issues.

Ken	Posted: March 20, 2009 1:38 PM

It's rather distrubing (yet entertaining) to read the reponses to this article. It's hard for me to imagine how come the readers can distract an article so much from its original intent. As a dummy on anything about stocks or trading, not to mention of comprehensing the complexity of the AIG mess, I don't think Mark's intention is to provide deep analysis or recommendation about the handling of the issue. He just simply make a analogy of "bonus" with "Grace", encouraging us to reflect deep in the gospel, and to see how "scandalous" the human nature is--as scandalous as those involve in the AIG fiasco. What he does was simply gave us a perspective on thinking about our miserable nature and God's power and grace, and we just complicate and mess up again. Sigh!

Joe	Posted: March 20, 2009 12:20 PM

The scandal is not just the bonus, but the incompetence of the government, both the Congress and the Administration, of letting it happen, and then refuse to admit that they knew of the bonus arrangement, and then have the gall to grandstand and express anger. I think They are so phony. They need to look at the mirror and I agree with Senator Grassley's satirical suggestion, except that it should be applied to everyone involved in the government. When are Americans going to wake up and see that all the government officials mentioned in the article are phonies and liars. We need to ask FNMA & FHLMC former executives to return all of their bonuses too, as we the taxpayers paid for them. What about the political contributions made by these entities? Who received the most political contribution from AIG, FNMA & FHLMC?

Mary M

Posted: March 20, 2009 11:34 AM

Colleen and Rev Phil miss the point of the article, I think. I doubt Mark was saying anything at all about how the AIG scandal should be handled; he stated as much. This article is like many of Jesus' parables. If you miss the main point and try to draw parallels to the details of the story, you end up making wrong-headed conclusions. A good example is Jesus' parable of the vineyard owner who paid the people who had worked all day what he promised them and then paid the latecomers who only worked a couple hours the same amount. Jesus was not giving advice on business practices. His point was that the owner was giving those latecomers not what they deserved, but what they needed to survive for another day. He was dispensing grace, and the ones who worked based on merit didn't understand that. Likewise, Mark was not drawing conclusions about what should be done with AIG based on the Gospel; he was using the unfairness of the AIG scandal to point to the scandal of the cross.

tekel

Posted: March 20, 2009 11:17 AM

There sure is a lot of pot calling the kettle black on this topic. The AIG bonuses are a non-issue. The greater issue is the US gov't mismanagment of this nation. Our "elected" officials make Enron look like mere kids play. When was the last time the USA was actually in the black? And don't tell me Clinton. He cooked the books by bankrupting social security and simply moving the gapping hole to another ledger. As far as I am concerned, the manipulated media is trying to find a sufficient enough scapegoat to placate and keep American's off the real root of our problems, an elitist oligarchy that has corporitized the USA into the NAU and sees it's populis as mere sheep to be shorn for globalism.

Noreen

Posted: March 20, 2009 11:05 AM


Please, tell the author to save his outrage for Obama and Dodd. They knew about these "bonuses"; indeed Dodd authored the amendment to the (first) Porkapalooza "bail-out" which made an exception which allowed them (the bonuses). Just more hokum from President HopenChange.

Roger

Posted: March 20, 2009 11:01 AM


A very superficial treatment of a complex issue. You are attempting to institute class warfare. Many hard-working people who have accrued bonuses over several years will end up having to pay more in Social Security and Medicare tax than they will receive.the real culprit are the people in Congress who only respond to the rhetoric of the moment.

Leland

Posted: March 20, 2009 10:55 AM

The moral outrage should be for a Congress that gave tax-payer money to a buisness that, as you have described, was headed toward collapse. Why give money to a business that has shown it does not know how to conduct business? Where is the moral outrage over our politicans and a president who has shown little leadership and a desire to pay off those who put them in office? There would be no outrage from Washington were it not for the public. The populist game is full steam ahead.

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