"Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down." - Casey Muller

nice to get some actual transparency - Robin Barooah

Wow. Heck of a letter. - Roberto Bonini

Very interesting statements in this read. - Micah

awesomely written letter. good for him. - eviltom

I with I could get a payment amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. - Gabe

@Gabe: you can donate less, people will still be thankful :) - Starepolsky smok

I wonder what he was doing with all that time at the office. - Yolanda

Yet another reason that not letting these companies go bankrupt causes so many problems: It politicizes every dollar that the company spends, subjecting it to scrutiny and congressional grandstanding. If AIG had simply gone belly-up, this guy wouldn't have made his money either, but it wouldn't have been a political nightmare. - Joel Webber

Of course, I know there are mitigating issues with bankruptcy for a lot of these firms, and its effect on the economy as a whole. But it reminds me of a great sticker I saw somewhere: "Too big to fail is too big to exist". - Joel Webber

He makes some good arguments about individual injustice, but is his position any different than the loss being suffered by employees and investors who had nothing to do with the downfall of the financial system? We're all getting the shaft, but he seems to want to believe he and his colleagues are special martyrs. Not sure I agree, even though it does suck for them. - Mike Yang

I wonder how much he donated when he was making gobs of money. Just askin'.... - Kevin (aka ThreadKilla)

This guy's big problem is that he was asked to stay without being paid, with the expectation that he would get that bonus. He could have been employed at a job that would have paid him a decent salary had he not been lied to about the bonus. - Gabe

More proof that there are no winners here. - Martha

I wonder if they'd cancelled the 'bonus' up front and offered him $250,000 a year, would he have quit because the salary wasn't high enough? Not saying that it should have been $250,000 - maybe it should have been more. Just pointing out that it would have been a lot more transparent and accountable, and that the bonus system is intentionally misleading. - Robin Barooah

Chris: Because, quite honestly, I'm suspicious of his motives. Would he be as generous if the pressure weren't on? Regardless, I don't buy his basic argument. He separates the fortunes of his business unit from the fortunes of the company as whole. Any company that requires a government bailout to survive shouldn't be paying bonuses to anyone. Why should I (or you) pay for that? - Kevin (aka ThreadKilla)

@Jason - I'm not talking about taxes. My point is that if they just said - this is what we hire these people for, and not make pretenses about $1 salary and then try to pay them under the table with a bonus, what would the outrage be about? Sure people could say they are being overpayed - which could be debated, but it wouldn't sound like a scam. - Robin Barooah

Didn't this fellow do the exact thing that got us into this situation in the first place? Here, we will value your labor at virtually nothing on the promise that after a particular period of time it will suddenly be worth a fortune!! Sounds like the bank attitude towards risky loans to me. We'll make this risky loan on this house because when they default it will be worth even MORE! This guy made a bet, that his company would be in a position in a year to pay him. - Jeff Jones

While I do not approve of a witch hunt, I have little sympathy for those who sit at the cross-roads of modern finance ('too big to fail'), levying a hefty tax on the productive output of the population to fund salaries grossly misaligned with actual individual value produced. I don't see this as any more of a gross injustice than the market position that allowed individuals such as the author to attain wealth grossly disproportionate to produced value. Everyone does indeed lose. - [email protected]

@Jason - with regard to not interfering - I am inclined to agree - however that same non interference would also have to extend to not bailing them out. How much would his 'sweat equity' be worth then? - Robin Barooah

They weren't, at least until the taxpayer bailed them out. So, I ask, why should taxpayer money be used to pay off the risk this guy took? - Jeff Jones

@Chris AIG failed in the market and has been propped up by direct government intervention -- the application of free market ideals seems a tenuous tact without also wholly rejecting the bail-out and thus leaving the issue of bonuses rather moot. Perhaps a wiser financial decision given the company's position would have been the negotiation of a reasonable salary? - [email protected]

So frustrating. And people laughed when I said government intervention was a bad idea. This is not an end to the cluster-eff, not in the least. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

My primary complaint is that we whine and whine about the $180m in bonuses but hardly whined a bit about the $180b. - Anthony Citrano

The $1 salary is a bit of a red herring. No, I wouldn't do it. But then I didn't make mid 7 figures the last few years. I need my salary to pay my (now ridiculously underwater) mortgage. As this guy makes abundantly clear, he's not living paycheck to paycheck. That said, I don't think the punitive tax measure makes any real sense. But I stand by the basic premise that companies being bailed out by the taxpayer should not be paying even $1 in bonuses until they've paid back what they borrowed. - Kevin (aka ThreadKilla)

+1 landon - for putting what I was trying to say in a clearer fashion. @Chris - I think the point is that given the decision *not* to have AIG go bankrupt, and to instead bail it out, it would have been more appropriate to *then* simply pay these people for their services and negotiate over that. If these people built up 'sweat equity' which was destroyed through no fault of their own, a large options grant to make it worth them fixing the mess without rewarding failure might have been logical too. - Robin Barooah

I have learned many important lessons while working but none as important as this: Your salary is the only guarantee you will have in a job. Bonuses and perks should never be counted on. - EricaJoy

So again, people - you're doing it. All pissed off about the bonuses - which represent 0.1% of the taxpayer dough shelled out to AIG so far. Where was your outrage about the other 99.9%??? - Anthony Citrano

yes, my master http://www.heritage.org/Press... - Boverdine