by Jennifer Dickinson

Created on: March 27, 2009

In the age of employees being imputed furlough days, buyouts and even layoffs, for AIG executives to have taken federal bailout money to write themselves a bonus check is dispicable and a slap in the face to those who they may consider insignificant in their company, yet are the heart of the true operations.

In a March 22 news report, it was suggested lawmakers were working on a bill which would recoup 90% of the bonus back from AIG through a special federal tax.

This seems like the craziest suggestion yet. What is this tax going to entail? Will it punish other businesses who use money ethically? Will it be something which can be retroactive to recoup the monies back from AIG's recipients?

It just seems like a "too little, too late" effort.

What company which is suffering a liquidity crisis goes out and gives out bonuses instead of reviving their company? Could the crisis have been so valid after all?

AIG executives should return this money in good faith, although, it's probably already been reinvested or spent and is now untouchable.

In addition to paying out $165 million in bonuses to their executives, AIG also spent $444,000 on a California spa trip (which they claimed was planned...right), $66,000 for a hunting trip, and another $343.000 to a trip to Arizona.

Logic is, when you don't have money in the bank, you don't take lavish vacations, right?

Not in AIG's case and they're still struggling with losses and being crushed by government loans.

Is it any wonder?

This business gluttony is not something new. I worked for a company which, it's motto about the "little people" of the company, myself included, was we were the "who in how things work." But each year, benefits would dwindle. The gifts and bonuses which were a morale booster and didn't cost the company a lot of money eventually started to fade.

However, a friend of mine who worked as a financial analyst in our department was watching the bonus numbers go up for the executives. While we were explained we would be eligible to a lucrative compensation plan, most of us only saw approximately $36 for the yearly bonus after tax. And that year, one executive purchased an aqua colored Jaguar.

Something was truly wrong with that picture.

As it turns out, the gluttony caught up with the executives. Many were laid off and it was to the point some employees were not reporting to anyone in the building since their bosses were let go. But in the end, the "little people", the ones who were really pulling the weight, the ones who were coerced to come in even when feeling ill, the one like myself, who was asked to come in the day after my grandmother's funeral to finish up a presentation and did it because she wanted to keep her job, were the types who suffer. I thankfully left the hellhole for a maternity leave but a number of my friends stayed and were laid off. And now the place is being sold and the doors are closing entirely.

And who, in many cases, take the heat for the performance because of mismanagement?

AIG executives should be forced to return bonuses, as well as the money used for the lavish events. And should they have to close the doors because of this, they should provide their employees with a strong severance package, even if the executives have to sell their jets, their homes in Aruba or their designer shoes.

They owe it to their employees, but they also owe it to the American Taxpayers...who many are struggling to put food on their tables let alone have the opportunity to vacation like the greedy AIG executives did three times.

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