A business associate and I roomed at an extended stay.  I was impressed with the facilities and service.  The hotel had breakfast every day and hors d’oeuvres, beer and wine Monday through Thursday.  I have to admit that one evening I ingested four hamburgers (what a pig) with vegetables (healthy).  This is in addition to lunch and occasional dinners that we were treated by our gracious hosts.

After a couple days in Irvine, I could feel my weight going up.  We decided to hit the exercise equipment forty-five minutes a day.  There was a weight scale, but we decided to skip on the reality check.  The exercise room had a large flat screen.  Most of the days the television set was tuned to CNN.

By now every Naive American knows that a considerable sum of taxpayer moneys, in the order of billions of Dollars has been, and will continue to be handed to bail out AIG (http://www.aig.com).  I am not going to cover in this blog if bailing out AIG is the right thing to do or not.  Will leave it for a separate entry.

The fact is that after the US government handed bail out funds to other financial institutions with few (if any) strings attached, AIG takes some of such funds and hands bonuses to many of their executives.  When the AIG bonus news hit the media, there was an outrage across America.  Apparently the AIG bonuses were authorized by a small clause (a sentence) in the law that was passed a few weeks ago.  CNN asked every single politician involved in generating the bailout law if they had added such phrase.  Believe it or not, not a single politician wanted to admit they had written such clause.  Senator Christopher Dodd (Democrat) of Connecticut was interviewed and he stated on camera that he did not know about the clause that mysteriously was added to the AIG bailout.  A couple days later he admitted that he authorized the clause, but he was not aware of the exact wording. 

We Naive Americans need to think about the actions of Senator Dodd.  First and foremost, he lied.  This is typical of most (if not all) politicians.  Second and most important, why would a politician do such an unethical and immoral thing?  The answer is simple yet disturbing.  The checks and balances in the US make it difficult (not impossible) for politicians to accept bribes.  Our political system allows for lobbyist and political contributions.  Most AIG executives live in mansions in the state of Connecticut.  Do you see the relationship?  Lobbyist for AIG pressed Senator Dodd to include such a ludicrous clause so their customer (AIG) could collect their bonuses not associated with performance, but in return for supporting Dodd’s political aspirations.  What is the saying that comes to mind “You scratch my back, I scratch yours”.  As most Naive Americans may realize by now, our electoral system is flawed.  Money paid by companies (i.e., AIG) to politicians (i.e., Senator Dodd) through lobbyists is what dictates US policy.  This is nothing new.  Has been in place for the past fifty years or so.

Now lets focus on the recipients of the AIG bonuses.  For starters, traditionally in our society, bonuses are given to people based on performance.  If the company is doing very well, then bonuses are in order to provide incentives to motivate hard work above and beyond the expected 40-hour week.  Two things come to mind.  [1] If the a company (i.e., AIG) is doing poorly as a result of bad and irrational decisions made by management, how in the world do they deserve a bonus?  [2] If a company (i.e., IAG) is doing poorly to the point of being in the verge of closing, how could the company get funds to pay bonuses?  The logical and simple answers are: no one deserves a bonus and there is no money for bonuses.  How in the world could lawyers and politicians come up with any valid concept or idea that would justify this absurdity?  Do not forget that the money at stake came from Naive American taxpayers.  I do not know about others, but this Naive American is completely against handing a portion of my taxes as some type of bonus to any company receiving bailout money, no mater what their situation is.

Naive Americans have heard people in Wall Street justifying that high-level executives need huge compensations to do what they do.  This sounds like royalty to me.  Upper management in the Financial System is incompetent and greedy.  They should all be fired and replaced by Naive Americans that are willing with a salary that cannot exceed by law the one paid to the president of the United States of America.  The majority of stockholders must approve any and all bonus to any and all executive.  Disband all board of directors.  Bonuses must always be paid in the form of stock options (not cash).  This proposal should not be taken as a suggestion by all types of companies, but should be made law in the US.  Please keep in mind that if the company is doing well, stock holders are collecting high dividends and would be willing to allow some shares to be purchased as options to compensate the hard work of executives.  If executives perform poorly, then dividends would be down.  The affected stockholders would not be willing to hand options to such individuals.  They would probably consider firing them.  This brings up the elimination of all “golden parachutes”.  If executives are fired for poor performance, then they should collect unemployment like a large percentage (currently about 10%) of Naive Americans are doing today.

Incompetent group of executives in all types of companies believe they belong to some type of class (royalty) that is above the rest of Naive Americans.  The US government should pass legislation in order to eliminate such class.  Please read what has happened to royalty though the ages in different civilizations.  Hopefully the economic and political unrest in our country will not lead to such dramatic and permanent actions.  As unemployment and unrest grows, the US is at a high risk of making dramatic changes not spearheaded by politicians but by Naive Americans.  We are in desperate need of CHANGE.

The USA is in need of simple legislation to get us back on track.  Regrettably this falls in the hands of politicians that are being bribed by companies and entities via lobbyists.

I urge each and every Naive American to put pressure on their representatives to induce peaceful and gradual change.  The same holds true to management in all types of companies.  The US needs to wake up and smell the roses.  We have been living in a dream in the past fifty years.  It is time to wake up, make CHANGES and work together for a new USA.