Fake Outrage
- Talking tougher by the hour, livid Democrats confronted beleaguered insurance giant AIG with an ultimatum Tuesday: Give back $165 million in post-bailout bonuses or watch Congress tax it away with emergency legislation. Republicans declared the Democrats were hardly blameless, accusing them of standing by while the bonus deal was cemented and suggesting that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could and should have done more.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group bonus recipients so the government could recoup some or all of the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.
While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.
No wonder they're screaming.
Labels: corruption, scandals
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
24 Comments:
This is huge.
Obama got over 100 thousand dollars from AIG.
Come on, media. Follow-up on this!
Can someone say REVOLUTION!!!!
...and the money keeps rolling in everday...........
It's all LEGIT kid..........
Retired in 2003..........
"Sound Bite Dick Durbin" also took $11,000.00 from AIG. Why did Barack get over 100-G and Durbin only 11-G?
Not sure where to post this, but you need to feature Mary Mitchell's column where she defends a wife hitting her husband over the head with a guitar. No way if the roles were reversed, would she condone this. Just another hypocrite.
Talk about "spin"! Even liberal Yahoo News had to chuckle at the Administration's act; here's a snippet:
WASHINGTON – Cue the outrage. For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.
Why the sudden furor, just weeks after Barack Obama's team paid out $30 billion in additional aid to the company? So far, the administration has been unable to match its actions to Obama's tough rhetoric on executive compensation. And Congress has been unable or unwilling to restrict bonuses for bailout recipients, despite some lawmakers' repeated efforts to do so.
"Congress just can't abrogate contracts unilaterally." Like they did with the UAW contracts at CM and Chrysler? If the working man can have a contract changed, why not the finance fat cat?
"Bush signed part of this bailout that was forced through by a democratic majority in the House." Umm, this is just patently false. Hank Paulson (part of Bush's executive branch) requested the money from congress which they approved under his threat of a massive liquidity crisis after years of mismanagement on his, Bernanke, and Greenspan's part.
As for the campaign donations, businesses always support the party in power, or the one that will be in power. Lets look back to the 2004 presidential donations from the financial insurance and real estate industries:
Bush: $28,169,889
Kerry: $7,890,906
Looks like a 4-to-1 ratio then...
source
Stick to reporting on Chicago Police matters, it is much more informative than this nonsense.
Burris missed out on the pay-out!
Dodd is part of the problem. He had a VIP mortgage from the famous countrywide mortgage company. This company blew up and had to be taken over by BAC. Barney Frank lived with some guy in the late 80s who was a big shot at FannieMae. Frank was a powerful congressman who pushed through legislation expanding Fannie to where they got into trouble. The derivative markets are not regulated ( that is where our pension fund lost a ton) because of the former senator Graham from Texas. He pushed no regulation ( his wife was chairwoman of commodities regulating). The Bush administration pushed banks to lend to the "less" qualified to boost homeownership. Biden wrote credit card legislation while his son worked for MBIA ( big credit card company)
It is legit as being on the job.
old retired guy
Once the revolution starts, I want to be on the side of the Police. I'm a civilian, but I've been shooting/hunting since I was a little kid in rural Pennsylvania......once the shit hits the fan, where do I go? How will I synch up with the good men & women of the PD?
When did AIG give this money to Dodd, Obama, McCain and the crew?
i really think you guys should stick to chicago police-related matters. on those you have great insight, which are appreciated, but on political stories like this... you're not saying anything that we haven't heard before.
AIG insures federal pensions. the gov't won't let the company go under. they can't. they are just reinvesting our money into their pensions. wtf!!!
don't over simplify. if the republicans looked like they were going to be clear winners the money would have been skewed that way. the sooner people realize it’s not red or blue, it's the system the sooner the issues can be addressed. as offensive as the aig money is, the fact remains they have tons of toxic assets to dispose of. a failure by aig could cause a cascade effect to their counterparties. Beginning in the first quarter of 2008, AIG disclosed the plan to offer retention awards at Financial Products. The unit had already begun to hemorrhage money, a problem that would later grow exponentially. The unit's executives, fearing they might lose valuable employees in the tumultuous months to come, successfully negotiated more than $400 million for their workers, to be paid this month and again next year.
At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which has directly overseen AIG since its federal takeover in September, officials have studied the possibility of rescinding or delaying the bonuses. They even brought in outside lawyers for advice. The conclusion: If the bonuses weren't paid, the AIG staffers would be able to sue the company and probably would win, not just what they were owed but also punitive damages that would make the ultimate cost perhaps two to three times as high as the bonuses themselves.
This is a dog and pony show so the masses feel good. People are getting fed up. And they are also trying to do end around, instead of banning guns, they are trying to limit ammo. Why, I don't know.
We have elected a bunch of thieves and con men to represent us. The time will come when enough people will get fed up and there will be hell to pay.
I don't think the American people want a situation where Congress, whenever it feels a contract shouldn't have been signed, passes a law to abrogate that past contract.
O Bama also got Millions from the Saudi Gov. for his election funds.
Quid pro qou for AIG (100 grand.)
"Why did Barack get over 100-G and Durbin only 11-G?
3/18/2009 12:31:00 AM"
Investment to return ratio?
Its all a giant size dog and pony show.
Its only there to confuse us, and keep us at odds with the truth.
"i really think you guys should stick to chicago police-related matters. on those you have great insight, which are appreciated, but on political stories like this... you're not saying anything that we haven't heard before.
3/18/2009 11:00:00 AM"
Sorta like you, huh?
I saw that Dodd ($103,000)was the person who slipped the one line item in AIG's bailout package so that bonuses would be allowed to be paid. Interesting the person who recieved the most donations fron AIG puts that in. Good work SCC.
"Sorta like you, huh?
3/18/2009 07:46:00 PM"
Quit talking to yourself, Festus.
"Quit talking to yourself, Festus.
3/19/2009 09:15:00 AM"
Are you talkin' ta me?
Are you talkin' ta ME?
ARE you talkin' ta me?
Post a Comment
<< Home