Bus 650, a rickety old vehicle with a barely attached ceiling and encrusted snot on the brown upholstery of the seats, struggles with the rolling hills in this park-like upscale residential area in Connecticut. This is where several employees of insurance giant AIG reside - the ones who received millions of dollars in bonuses even after AIG had to be rescued with a government bail-out.
The bus's engine coughs, and driver Bill – a golden eagle and 'USA' in thickly embroidered letters on his cap – puts his foot down on the accelerator. The passengers stare out of the dirty windows at the lavish homes outside. So this is where they live.
After almost three years of listening to macro-economic abstractions like 'real estate bubble', 'bad assets' and 'toxic loans' made by faceless banks that couldn't be confronted, Americans seem to have found their scapegoat: the employees of insurance giant AIG who received millions of dollars in bonuses while their activities were at least partly responsible for the current crisis. Suddenly the credit crunch has an address. It has a double front door, three chimneys and a front yard with private guards standing on the lawn.
The right to be angry
Last weekend, over 400 employees of AIG's financial products division received a total of 218 million dollars in bonuses. The incentive for this payout: to keep them with the company. At the same time, the world’s largest insurer is being kept afloat by the US government, which has so far invested 170 billion dollars of taxpayer's money in AIG.
Anger and resentment over the AIG bonuses spread across the US like wildfire last week - sometimes with a little help from politicians on Capitol Hill. During a five-hour session, members of congress made it clear to AIG's chief executive that the safety of his company’s bonus recipients was of far less importance than the public's right to know their names. One senator even suggested that AIG employees look to Japan and learn from their example: first humble apologies, then resignations, then suicide. Even president Barack Obama put in his five cents when he said: "I don't want to quell anger - I think people are right to be angry. I am angry."
Exactly how angry the Americans are was revealed by a recent Gallup opinion poll. It showed that 59 percent are "outraged" by the AIG bonuses, and 76 percent said the government should try to block and/or recover these bonuses.
Seen up close, this popular uprising looks something like this: thirty angry people on a bus trip dubbed The lifestyles of the rich and $hameless making their way past the affluent houses of AIG employees in Fairfield, Connecticut, a two-hour drive north of Wall Street.
'Make them feel the hate'
They all have their own reasons to resent the AIG employees. Take 47-year-old Mark Dziubek: he has five kids and seven weeks ago he was fired from the steel plant where he had worked for decades. "I'm past angry," he says. "And even the shock of the enormous bonuses is gone. All I feel now is disgust."
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Dziubek realises that "it's very hard to separate people from their money", but he still feels that these AIG employees should hand back their bonuses. "They need to do what's right," he says. And if that means Dziubek will be getting on that rickety bus every weekend then so be it. It's not like he has anyhting better to do with his time.
Craig Stallings, sitting in the back of the bus with his three sons, was fired too. He worked in the baggage handling department of an airport. His complaint: "The money that should be spent on my kids' education is now disappearing into the pockets of men who destroyed an American institution and the global economy." Stallings believes the solution is to "increase the pressure. Make them feel the hate."
Maybe Stallings hadn't seen the tour's instructions for dealing with the press. They were clearly posted on a billboard at the tour's headquarters: "Pause. Stick to the topic (these millions can do much for our communities). Remain calm and collected."
None of the passengers can actually link their own troubles directly to the AIG bonuses. Rather, it is a litany of complaints: Dziubek wants more factory jobs, Stallings wants to save teachers from losing their jobs, others point to an increased crime rate as a result of the flailing economy. Children are hungry. Thousands of people are still losing their jobs every day.
Name-and-shame
It is for this last reason that preacher Mary Huguley has come on this outing. Her sister-in-law is unable to pay her mortgage and is now facing foreclosure. After Huguley leads everyone in prayer from the front of the bus, she walks over to a house with a letter in her hand addressed to an AIG employee. But no one seems to know exactly which house is his, and Huguley finds herself – surrounded by camera crews - on the wrong driveway. Pardon me!
When she finally finds the right home – a white mansion in neocolonial style– the guards who have been hired because of the threats in general and this tour in particular, refuse to accept the letter. It is addressed to Douglas Poling who was the lucky recipient of a 6.4 million dollar bonus - the highest at AIG. Huguley has to settle for reading the letter out loud and leaving it in the mailbox. There is no movement behind the eighteen windows.
The problem is that Poling belongs to a group of AIG employees who have agreed to return their bonuses. In fact, every stop on this name-and-shame tour is the house of someone who has already offered to pay back the bonus. So what exactly is the point of protesting there? It is a practical issue, the organisers say. Only the names of those who are returning the bonuses are known to the public.
For now, that is. Several AIG employees have been subpoenaed by the state of Connecticut and will be forced to testify this coming Thursday. Mark Dziubek can hardly wait.
