I almost broke the steering wheel in my car on the way to work this morning listening to “Brian & The Judge”. It’s one of my favorites and I usually agree with Judge Andrew Napolitano. Not so much today. The topic under discussion was the bonus payments at the investment firms that were bailed out with the TARP funds. My hard-earned tax dollars. The Judge – who has been breathing too many fumes from Manhattan – was of the misbegotten opinion that the bonuses were part of the Wall St. workers’ salary and was sticking up for those poor souls who are now being unfairly hammered for being the recipients of this largesse.

Pardon me, Your Honor, but you’re all wet on this one. Over the course of my employment history, I have had a job where I worked on a base + bonus basis – as a marketing manager for a Fortune 100 company. It was real clear from day one that the bonus only kicked in if I exceeded my “objective”. Objectives for the sales teams were established by management as a reflection of how much revenue the company needed to reach profitability. If we didn’t reach our goals, the company didn’t reach the magic black ink. No black ink – no bonus. Pretty simple concept. And guess what – there was a year when we didn’t get the company out of the red – and the year-end bonus didn’t happen. Nobody was shocked or surprised. Disappointed – oh yeah. Poorer for the experience – you got that right. Bailed out? Silly Rabbit, those tricks are for suckers.

I didn’t think the TARP money was ever intended to assure that the worker bees who didn’t meet those companies’ financial goals would be compensated for incompetence, and I have a real problem with those that do.

So now we hear President Obama and Senator McCaskill among others wringing their hands over how to reverse this situation. I’ve got an idea. Actually happened to me at the above mentioned company. When the bean counters tallied up the beans at the end of that one year they found out they were a few beans (ok – a few hundred thousand beans – and possibly a few marbles too) short of the expected total annual revenue. So, those of us who had been expecting year-end bonuses to round out our quarterly bonuses which we had already been paid (and pretty much spent) – got cute little love notes from the Big Boss, wishing us a “Happy New Year and by the way you owe us all the bonus money we paid you last year. Did you want to pay that in installments over six months or write us a check now?”

I’m not at all comfortable with the whole TARP thing anyway, but for sure the idea of paying out bonuses to people who failed to achieve profit-status for their company just doesn’t work at all for me. I’m working for less than $30K a year and some ivy-league MBA dude who makes a base salary in the mid-to-high six figures and can’t do his job right gets a multi-hundred thousand dollar bonus??? I don’t think so.

Nope, Judge. Objection denied. And Mr. President – just take a minute or two away from healing the planet and receding the oceans – and get some flunky on your staff to draft a letter. Something to the effect of, “Gosh we made a mistake. You didn’t earn the bonus, your company went belly-up, you don’t get to keep the money. Please send your check for $______________ in the enclosed return envelope. Love, The One.”