Mar 19 2009
Geithner Lied To America About AIG Bonuses
At one point Treasury Secretary Giethner claimed he had not heard about the AIG bonuses until March 10th, but he now admits he pushed the Dems in Congress to pull the bonus restrictions (which of course would allow the AIG bonuses to go through).
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNN Thursday his department asked Sen. Chris Dodd to include a loophole in the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep its bonuses.
In an interview with CNN’s Ali Velshi, Geithner said the Treasury Department was particularly concerned the government would face lawsuits if bonus contracts were breached.
Sen Dodd claimed Giethner made the argument any challenging lawsuits for breach of contract would suck away tax dollar money to defend any move to restrict bonuses. So how could he not have been surprised by anything than the political blowback. He and Obama knew about the risks of a blowback (I am sure Geithner passed this by the White House).
They tried to lie to America and claim surprise!
This is change? This is transparency?
This is lying and covering up – something crooked politicians are the best at.
Not only did the President lie…..he went to the public and excoriated the employees at AIG. Geithner wrote the original contract for AIG and TARP. At the time he was the head of the New York division of the Fed. So he knew last October or when ever AIG and TARP got together. Who is this Obama guy?
This whole thing is crazy. Did Obama know what Geithner did? Obama has been out there “shaking with outrage” or so he said. So either Obama is oblivious or he is a liar.
I think he is trying to blame it all on private sector business so that he can push a socialist agenda.
What I loved was watching Obama say “I take responsibility for this” and in almost the next breath say “but it wasn’t my fault!”
He doesn’t understand the fundamental concept of taking responsibility for something. Of course,he’s never taken responsibility for anything in his life, so that’s no surprise.
This entire legislative outburst of pretend outrage is hilarious in a dark way. If they keep on and pass some of what they’re threatening, they could end up destroying the TARP program before it even gets going.
Remember that the entire point of the TARP program was not just to save the banks, but to allow banks to have enough liquidity to start loaning large amounts of money again. Now I agree that there are many holes in that theory, but that’s what the plan has been since this came out, and we’ve already sunk $750 billion into this plan.
If (When) the punitive restrictions pass, any bank that isn’t a zombie (like Citigroup) will find ways to pay the TARP money back as quickly as possible, even though that will drastically curtail their ability to make new loans. The ones that can’t pay back the money will be the banks in such bad shape that they won’t be doing much new lending anyways. The TARP plan, as it was envisioned, will be dead.
And the plan the restart this economy? There will be no plan. No plan except print money, inflate the currency, and hope that somehow that works out.
Oh yeah, that’ll work.
Obama spoke without his teleprompter again. This time he compared “AIG” to a “suicide bomber”:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-deranged-aig-is-like-suicide.html
But today, President Obama took that rhetoric in a different direction. He actually upped the ante explaining that AIG is like a suicide bomber.
“We had to step in, it was the right thing to do, even though it is infuriating,†Obama said, explaining why the government needed to bail out the troubled banks.
“The same is true with AIG,†he said. “It was the right thing to do to step in. Here’s the problem. It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger. You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk them, ease that finger off the trigger.â€
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Even though AIG can be compared to a “suicide bomber”, Napalitano explains why we no longer use the term “terrorism”. It is just too scarey. We now have to call them “man caused disasters.”
The War on Man Caused Disasters? LOL
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/03/17/the-war-on-mancaused-disasters.php
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has an explanation about why she never mentioned the word “terrorism” during her first testimony on Capitol Hill.
Napolitano tells the German news site Spiegel Online that while she presumes there is always a threat from terrorism: “I referred to “man-caused” disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.”
Obama Envoy Holbrooke Served on AIG Board When Controversial Bonuses Approved
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Obama administration special envoy Richard Holbrooke was on the American International Group Inc. board of directors in early 2008 when the insurance company locked in the bonuses now stoking outrage across the U.S.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/19/obama-envoy-holbrooke-served-aig-board-bonus-bonanza/
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So, let me summarize:
Dodd: “Even though I put it in the legislation, I know nothing.”
Geithner: “Even though Treasury asked for the change to secure the bonus money, I know nothing.”
Holbrooke: “Even though I was on the Board of AIG when the bonus money was approved, I know nothing.”
Obama: “I never know anything about anything unless it is on my teleprompter. My teleprompter never told me.”
SPIN METER: Cue the Washington outrage
Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer – Wed Mar 18, 6:25 am ET
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.
In January, Reps. Joseph E. Crowley of New York and Paul E. Kanjorski of Pennsylvania wrote to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department pressing the administration to scrutinize AIG’s bonus plans and take steps against excessive payments.
“I at that point realized that we were going to have a backlash with regard to these bonuses,” Kanjorski said in an AP interview. In a meeting with Liddy later that month, he said he told the AIG chief that “all hell would break loose if we didn’t find a way to inform the public … and that we should take every step to put that information out there so we wouldn’t have the shock.”
Around the same time, Congress and Obama’s team were passing up an opportunity to put in place strict laws to revoke bonuses from recipients of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. In February, the Senate voted to add such a proposal to the economic recovery bill that cleared Congress, but in final closed-door talks on the measure, that provision was dropped in favor of limits that affect only future payments.
“There was a lot of lobbying against it and it died,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who proposed the measure with Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. He said Obama’s team is sending mixed messages on what will and won’t be tolerated on bonuses, with the president coming out strongly against excessive Wall Street rewards but top officials not following through.
“The president goes out and says this is not acceptable, and then some backroom deal gets cut to let these things get paid out anyway,” Wyden said. “They need to put this to bed once and for all.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_go_pr_wh/aig_what_did_they_know
The bonuses are the tip of the iceberg. Bad as they are, they are mice nuts compared to the $170 billion of taxpayer money that went out AIG’s door to pay off the derivative counter parties, i.e. sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and foreign banks. That’s who is really being bailed out!
End the bailout NOW!
I have never thought that he was a “great orator” or even able to articulate. When you listen to his constant breaks in his speech pattern-he is an individual that speaks poorly in an extemporaneous setting. The fact that he cannot make sense in his phrasing and word choices, makes me wonder about thought processes. Those of us in the medical field notice speaking patterns and facial expressions. To me, Obama has a flat affect.
I am trying not to sound crazy-but I think he is a puppet, planted 20 years ago. All of his educational and medical records are sealed-why? How can any man vote present 130 times (as he did in the Illinois senate), what kind of man is that? Sorry, just venting this morning; but his shoving of his leftist agenda down our throats, at the speed he is doing it is frightening.
It’s to bad it wasn’t the FBI asking Dodd the questions as his answers would have gotten him the same result that Martha Stewart achieved.
When you vote for someone, be it a president or member of congress, that has documented moral or ethical issues you should not be surprised when that pattern of behavior continues. Voters made their choice and now they have to live with it. They aren’t going to like the consequences and they will place blame wherever but the reality is staring at them in the mirror.
As far as Treasury and Geithner go I ask you, would you want to work for him? Would you subject yourself to questioning by the mob (Lynch mob, “I’m a contracts lawyer”) that questioned the AIG CEO. The CEO, who works for $1 a year, should have said to Lynch “you don’t like it, I quit, find someone who you think can solve this on your own”, he should then have gotten up and walked out. By the time congress figured out what had happened and attempted to find a replacement AIG would have made it to bankruptcy.
As far as the bonuses and taxing them goes congress is going to find out about Bills of Attainder and they will end up paying for the lawsuit since it will likely come at them via AIG and, oh by the way, that will be paid for by US government bailout dollars given to AIG. Brilliant. Nothing like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Voters should be impressed by the results of their decision. Idiots.
Pandering to the public and playing politics isn’t the half of it. Since when do we allow the federal government to single out individual citizens for attack and personal destruction? What the hell is going on in this country?? The Soviet Union, Cuba, Nazi Germany–all were infamous for the persecution or murder of individuals foolish enough to imagine that they had God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness! Today, from that asshat Andrew Cuomo to US senators, the names of AIG bonus recipients are demanded for publication! Employees are quitting AIG out of fear of retaliation by imbeciles in the public! This is ludicrous. Welcome to a Marxist government which will soon take direct aim at the next available diversion from its own incompetence.
I was wondering why all these pigs were flying past my window and then I found this at the NYT linked by Instapundit.
The New York Times actually doing a story on the Democrats culture of corruption in New York?
So lets see, we had a powerful Philadelphia Democrat found guilty of over 100 counts of corruption charges, and now this:
Turned the state pension fund into a criminal enterprise … Democrats … criminal enterprise … why am I not surprised?