Packing It In

AIG CEO Robert Benmosche is reportedly considering quitting as AIG's head because of all the pesky government control stuff.

My response to this:

1) You took the job. Nobody forced you to do so at gunpoint, and you knew exactly what the government expected you to do.

2) You don't get to pay people bonuses when you still owe the taxpayers hundreds of billions. Sorry. That applies to all your employees. By all accounts you guys should be on the streets looking for jobs like the other 10 million plus Americans. I want my share of the hundreds of billions of dollars back. Also, see #1.

3) Your salary cap is still $500,000. Try to find a way to live on that. Hundreds of millions of us do every year. It's more than I make, and I'm betting a lot of smart and unemployed executives would be lining up for a crack at your job there, pal...and hey, as CEO you're still getting $10.5 million for your troubles.

4) Finally, you're still employed in this economy as a Wall Street asshole. That alone should be worth something.

No sympathy at all. None.

[UPDATE 1:35 PM] Yves Smith at nakedcap gets to the unfortunate root of the problem:

I cannot believe the intransigence here. If this had occurred in, say, the Johnson or Nixon administrations, someone from the officialdom would have read Benmosche the riot act a long time ago, pointing out he knew exactly what he was getting into and how it was far from prudent to cross someone much bigger than you are. But no one in Team Obama has any balls, Benmosche knows it, and is playing this for all it is worth.

Amen to that.