How about a little perspective people?
AIG received 180 billion dollars of bailout funds from U.S. taxpayers.
It has authorized the disbursement of 165 million dollars of those funds to pay contractually obligated employee bonus payments.
So what percentage of the total bailout funds is AIG using “irresponsibly”?
The Formula
Where ,
A= the bonus payment to employee and B= the total bailout payment to AIG
then,
A/B = the percentage of the total bailout money AIG will use for employee bonuses.
The Calculation
$165,000,000/$180,000,000,000 = .0009166
That is less than 1/10th of a percentage point.
Again, the bonuses proposed by AIG amount to less than 1/10th of a percentage point of the total bailout monies AIG has received from U.S. taxpayers.
The Analogy
The outrage over AIG’s plan to honor its employee contracts and pay out bonuses as required by those contracts reminds me of the parent who punishes his 13 year old daughter for “wasting” a single dime of her $100.00 a month allowance on a piece of bubble gum.
Now can we please drop this pseudo-outrage and self-righteous nonsense?
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jerry // Mar 18, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I agree with you fully that the discussion on the media is a smoke screen that avoids examining the real crime of the bailout. That is what congress should be discussing. I think the correct per centage is one tenth of one percent. I am not sure of that figure either. Let’s hear from some math experts out there.
2 Peter // Mar 18, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Jerry,
The figure is .0009166
You are right.
That’s 1/10th of a percent.
I made the correction.
Thanks
3 The Big Bonus Strawman // Feb 3, 2010 at 2:36 am
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