Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 1 Jun 2009 18:22:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090531/1358105071.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090531/1358105071.shtml why WMG's top two executives were given $6.25 million in bonuses last year as the company was collapsing. And with some back of the envelope calculations, they note that the company could save hundreds of millions of dollars by dropping the bonuses and using the money to pay back the debt earlier, saving on some of the massive interest payments that are on the way.

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]]> might-save-some-money http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090531/1358105071 Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:40:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090322/2132384208.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090322/2132384208.shtml how to feel about the AIG bonuses that were big in the news last week. It's definitely disgusting and troubling to see the money handed out that way, but it's really a tiny sum in the big scheme of things, and there are a lot bigger and more important things that the government should be focused on. Besides, the populist anger is really misplaced -- often directed at the current management or the recipients of those bonuses, rather than those who put in place the contracts that made those bonuses required. But, the very fact that Congress spent so much time on it highlights something we warned about earlier this year: as soon as the government steps in to help a business, it's going to greatly hamstring what that company can do, since its every move will be extra-scrutinized and critiqued. That will certainly limit what many companies are willing to do.

And we're seeing that right now. With the administration spending the weekend trying to convince private firms to buy up a bunch of the "toxic assets" out there, many are (reasonably) worried that they might face AIG-bonus-style backlash. It makes them a lot less willing to act, exactly at a time when we need private firms to step up and clean up the mess.

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]]> backlash... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090322/2132384208 Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:41:09 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081218/1508383168.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081218/1508383168.shtml good assets, even in such tough times. It appears that Credit Suisse Group may have come up with a creative solution to all of those things. Instead of cash bonuses this year, it's going to give employees some of those toxic assets it holds. This is incredibly creative for a variety of reasons. It starts to get some of those assets off the balance sheet. It gives them to employees who want bonuses, and it gives those employees quite the incentive to make sure those assets are actually worth something. Of course, since many of those employees recognize that the assets aren't worth much at all, many of them are pissed off, but it's pretty difficult to come up with any reason at all that they deserve any sort of bonus, so they're probably a lot better off accepting what they're given and seeing if they can actually make it worth something.

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]]> two-birds,-one-stone http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081218/1508383168