How I spent my federal bailout money
I want to state for the record: I am not giving back my bonus.
I deserved that bonus for my 12 months of hard work at my financial conglomerate, AIG/Bear/GlobaBank/ Bernie’s Scam Parlor.
This is a point that is often lost in this public “outcry”: Packaging toxic assets is not easy or pleasant work. It must be done with protective gloves. The American taxpayer should be thankful for my willingness to do it at all. Otherwise, we would be forced to bring in migrants.
Another thing the public doesn’t understand: Bonuses are not actually “bonuses.” To me, the word “bonus” implies possibly a “reward” or a “prize,” but really, I think of it more like a “right.”
Here at AIG BearScam, as we call it for short, bonuses are a way of life. Our salaries are actually pretty small, like $200,000 or something, and we count on those bonuses to feed our families and lease our Lexuses.
I have heard people say, “Why should we reward the very miscreants who got us into this mess in the first place?”
I have only one reply to that: What is a miscreant? And besides, I can’t understand how people can say that we here at AIG BearScam “caused” this mess.
The global financial meltdown had many causes. It began with a series of risky loans to bad-credit borrowers. It escalated when those loans were packaged into complicated securities. Then it came to a head when those loans went into default and drained away the assets of everyone in the world. Just because AIG BearScam had a hand in every step of that process doesn’t mean we “caused” it. We were simply “partners” in it.
Then I turn on the TV and I hear that people are upset because my bonus was paid for with federal bailout money. First of all, nobody can be certain of that. Our federal bailout money got blended together with many different kinds of money. There was money from insurance premiums, money from interest payments, money “found” in car seats by senior management and money that came from foreclosing on widows.
It all ended up in the same place, on the floor of our great “money temple,” where it got mixed around, using brooms and those leaf-blower things. My guess is that my bonus is actually only 68 percent federal bailout money.
Besides, what’s wrong with using federal bailout money for my bonus? I plan to directly and immediately stimulate the economy with my bonus funds. Here is my plan: One-quarter will be pumped into the nation’s infrastructure (a circular driveway at my lake place); one-quarter will be used for green transportation alternatives (a sailboat); and one-quarter will be used for international trade development (a weekend in Cabo).
The other quarter – and this should quiet all arguments – will be pumped directly into the U.S. Treasury. I owe $673,000 in back taxes and frankly, I rely on my annual bonus to stay ahead of those tax fraud charges.
So, to sum up, I am not giving back my bonus. I should also mention that I misspoke in the above paragraphs when I talked about the ways I “plan” to spend my bonus. I have already spent my bonus. That money is history.
So let me amend: I cannot give up my bonus. Rest assured, however, that I am open to the possibility of giving back a small portion of my next bonus. I am already hard at work on earning my 2009 bonus, doing the tireless and thankless work of repairing our financial system, which somebody seems to have broken.