Mar 18 2009
AIG Paid Obama Donations
So let me get this straight. AIG supports Senator Obama so he can run for President by paying over $100 grand. Then President Obama gets into office and he and Senator Dodd (who also got paid over $100 grand by AIG) fork over billions of dollars of OUR money to AIG, who then pays out million dollar bonuses to their top people (73 in all). See how easy it is to get rich if you are connected to politicians in DC?Â
Americans want to know: where is our bailout and how can we get OUR money back?
Don’t forget the pivotal fact in this mess AJ.
Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner is the genius who came up with the AIG bailout plan way back in the fall of last year.
Turbo Tax Timmy is also the guy who is saying now “We didn’t know.”
Also, don’t forget that Christopher Dodd added an amendment to the stimulus bill which REQUIRED these bonuses to be paid.
Now, he and the CongressCritters who voted for this madness are saying “Don’t blame us….We didn’t know.”
I swear to you this makes me so angry…..not at AIG for honoring their contractual obligations….but at Congress and the President for thinking that we are STUPID enough to not connect the dots.
Congress cannot be allowed to reverse legally binding contracts after the fact. It cannot be allowed for any reason.
The Constitution prohibits Bills of Attainder and Ex Post Facto laws.
Has ANYONE on the Hill ever even read the Constitution?
A road trip over the National Archives would be a Congressional junket I would support.
You’ll love the plan that’s floating around today – the proposal is to withhold the amount of the bonuses from the next planned $30 billion payout to AIG. Sounds great, right?
Think about it – AIG has been ridiculously irresponsible, so the plan is for the taxpayers to give them ANOTHER $30 billion, and then Congress will withold 1/2 of 1% of that and then tell everyone what a good job they did. Hey guys – it’s still OUR MONEY.
Oh, and believe me, we are on the hook to keep giving AIG billions and billions and billions. That is the problem with taking ownership – the US now owns over 80% of AIG, which means the US is now on the hook for approximately $1.2 TRILLION (yes, TRILLION) that AIG has on it’s CDO books. We had a way out of this – bankruptcy for AIG. We refuse to follow the only responsible option, and this administration continues to lie daily about the future liabilities this.
And as far as how outrageous these bonus payouts are (of course, I am not disputing at all the legal requirement that they be paid; Chris Dodd and the scamulous bill guaranteed that by law) These are called “Retention Bonuses.” They are supposed to keep “key employees” working in key positions. Is that how they’re working out?
The biggest “retention” bonus was an individual payment of $6.5 million. The employee who recieved this “retention bonus” quit shortly after getting his payout. Nice work, guys. Laughing all the way to Aruba, on our dime.
And if you doubt that the situation is getting worse, not better, just look at who TurboTax Timmy just hired at Treasury. (Old news – no one decent or responsible will work for Timmy)
Economist Lewis Alexander has just been hired to be Timmy’s top consultant. He must have good credentials, right? Well of course! He was the top economist for Citigroup for the last decade. Oh wait – he was the man responsible for the advice which helped annhilate the value of the largest banking company in the world. He sat, watched, and fiddled while tens of billions of dollars burned – oh, but he sure got the big payout himself.
An example of Alexander’s stellar business advice from 2007, which Citigroup bet the company on: “In December 2007, he was quoted as saying that while he believed the housing market would remain weak well into 2008, it was more likely that the economy would keep growing than head into recession, adding that the housing bubble was “correcting on its own.””
http://www.fox2now.com/business/sns-ap-treasury-staffing,0,4718847.story
It’s so comforting to know that now the US Treasury will be listening to his advice.
The thing is – while everyone is focused like a laser on this AIG business (which is actually something that is old, decided and water under the bridge no matter how much we want the money back) – Obama is quietly appointing people like Mr. Hamilton of Indiana to the bench who…
“last year struck down a state law that required convicted sex offenders to submit to searches of their personal computers.”
It will be this little, secret stuff that is our complete undoing…
lacegrl130,
You are exactly right.
These are the bright, shiny distractions which draw our attention away from the sleight of hand that is going on before us.
Mark this day in history – something huge just happened.
The Fed is now going to buy $300 billion of long term government bonds, and up to $750 billion of Fannie Mae bonds. Sounds good, doesn’t it? The Fed doesn’t have to raise taxes or anything to come up with this money – they just snap their fingers, and presto! They have as much money as they have ink.
So why doesn’t this cheer me up? This is classic printing press inflation, much the same thing as Weimar Germany did, before it got out of control. But we’re smarter than them, we’ll never let this thing get away from us. (hint – it already has.)
Oh, stocks should surge for a bit – monetary inflation always elevates prices of all real assets. But this will not lead to any hiring or risk taking – just the opposite. It will paper over some of the worst problems for a few months while the employment situation deteriorates.
And then we will have double digit unemployment combined with double digit inflation. That’s what will be called “recovery.” Welcome to our Brave, New, World.
After today there is no longer any other option open.
WWS why does no-one report this?
What is they way out?
Will the American people ever hear about it or understand what just happened?
The American media is a willing accomplise in the tearing apart of this great country.
Will Americans ever stop voting Dems?
The thing is AIG is contracturally obligated to pay these bonuses and most of these people had nothing to do with the problems AIG is facing now. So, morons like Barney Frank put the names of the people who are supposed to get bonuses on TV and they get death threats.
All the while the Democrats {who helped create the situation} go after Liddy, the new boss at AIG that was not even running the place when all this happened.
The whole thing is ridiculous.
And of course if they do not come to the rescue of AIG and they collapse they will take a great deal of the European financial system, not to mention American 401Ks with them.
On one hand I would like nothing better than to let them eat cake, at the same time I don’t want to see a complete collapse either.
I have no idea what the best plan of action is, but Obama has spent way too much money on all sorts of stuff that has nothing to do with toxic assets.
WWS:
I think the housing bubble might have corrected on its own if the price of gas had not gone up to $4 a gallon and if oil was not $145 a barrel. If it had not been for that so many people would not have had trouble making mortgage payments. So many businesses would not have seen their cost of production go up. There would have been some kind of recession anyway, but I doubt if it would have been as bad if the rest of the economy had not been struggling under inflationary energy prices.
So now we know the truth. Obama and Geithner told Dode to change the wording in the bill to permit AIG to pay bonuses. Got that. Obama and Geithner……….then Obama went public to say how disgraceful these fat cats on Wall Street are, they have received death threats, as well as their families. And we had to listen to our glorious Senate threaten to tax or hall them to court or publish their names. Obama did this………he did this and is now claiming he will take responsibility for it so we can move on even though he is not really responsible. Is anybody feeling sick yet? Will we read tomorrow in the NYT’s Obama lied and people lost everything. Come on people our new president has been in office for 50 days and is telling one lie after the other.
oh, this is priceless
Dodd is pretty much toast. I think he is seriously considering retirement at this point … or should be.
These AIG bonuses are a mere side show at a few hundred million.
WWS has it right, people should be hopping mad about the $150 billion that has already gone out the AIG window to support foreign banks and the sovereign wealth and hedge funds who were the counter parties to the derivatives (i.e. Chinese and Arabs). That money is gone and now our kids are on the hook to pay for it for the rest of their lives like a kind of slavery.
The banks and insurance companies that played with derivatives should go bankrupt. Bailouts should be reserved for people who played by the rules, worked hard and saved.
The “real” story as I see it are that the very people who facilitated the Democrat program of putting people who can’t afford it into mortgages and created these financial instruments derived from them are the ones getting the bailouts and are now significant players in the Obama administration.
Former players from Citi, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac … all senior economic advisors of the Obama administration. When one is ill and gets sick, the cure generally is not to eat more of what made you sick.
Also, these institutions are responsibly for millions of dollars in contributions to the Democrats who are now bailing them out. It is a quid pro quo as obvious as the noses on their faces.
Ever wonder how Obama was able to accumulate in 5 years more campaign donations from these people than Dodd was able to accumulate in 30? Now you have your answer. They bought and paid for Obama. Now he is delivering his side of the bargain.
I was just watching a youtube video and according to that guy, a congress critter is guaranteed their FULL salary for LIFE after serving only one term in office.
AIG is a deversion, no doubt about it, however its a deversion that is backfiring on the administration. People are sick of the double talk coming from Obama, Dodd, and Reed. Its catching up with them. Politicians will always, “complicate the obvious and trivialize the momentous”. This time the public may, just may catch on.
Concerned Citizen
It is not just foreign countries or whatever that AIG is responsible to and for. It is American workers and their 401Ks. This is the place these people are in, if they save it they are in trouble, and if they don’t save it…they are in trouble.
A lot less politics and a little more honesty and transparency could have saved them a lot of this outrage. Now, there might be a time when it really would be in our best interests for them to intervene and it is looking like people will be beyond caring.
They threw the baby out with the bath water.
And the truth is if it had not been for certain government programs and initiatives a lot of these banks etc would not be in this position. Left to their own devices they would not have touched a lot of these toxic assets. The government backed them up and now we see where that has lead us.
I sometimes wonder if certain people in the Democratic party are just trying to give capitalism a bad name. After all, if it can be shown that corporations and businesses can not be trusted to care about anything but money..then it will be a lot easier to establish a government program to control them all.
I read yesterday that there is a bill up for a vote soon. HR 875 {I think}, the The Food Safety Act.. it will establish the Food Safety Administration. If that thing passes you will not be able to sell sweet corn at a road side stand with federal approval and licensing. The government just keeps creeping along, absorbing more and more.
I should have said you will not be able to sell sweet corn “without” a permit. In fact all farmers markets would have to be regulated.