Can you imagine telling your employees, hey you, pay me back that 5 mil bonus I gave you.
Somehow they pulled it off.
-------------------------------
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Kenneth Feinberg, the "pay czar" under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, told Fox Business Network on Tuesday that American International Group Inc. (AIG) has recouped $45 million in retention bonuses that the U.S. government demanded be returned by employees. "It's history," Feinberg said. "AIG has sought and recovered the $45 million in bonus pledges that were promised by those employees to be repaid to the taxpayer."
Feinberg, whose official title is special master for executive compensation, said in the next few weeks he'll be prescribing "tough medicine" for the five companies that remain in his jurisdiction. Those pay guidelines, he said, will provide for "low base cash salaries, and the rest of compensation in stock which can't be redeemed for two, three, four years."
Feinberg rejected the idea that his office represents interference in the free market, since it only covers companies that received help under TARP. "Congress decided that since the American people saved these companies and are the chief creditors of these companies, they have a right to have a say, in just these five companies in individual compensation."
Feinberg credited the Treasury Department-run TARP with staving off a broader collapse. "It appears from what I have read as a private citizen that TARP worked," he told Fox Business. "It was necessary. It saved us from something much worse, and now the question is can we gradually evolve out of that type of government subsidization and let the free market do its will."
Link to the story.