AIG’s Dysfunctional Managers and their Bonuses
Since Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff has gone to jail, the Howard Beal “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore” anger towards Wall Street has found a new whipping boy.
It is insurance giant AIG, the proud recipient of $173 billion and counting in United States government aid.
AIG, now 80% owned by the taxpayers, has committed the corporate version of pedophilia sans the usual shame and remorse. The company, almost certainly in need of more cash infusions than the $173 billion already given it by the taxpayers, somehow found enough extra money (from where I do not know) to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees last Friday.
Bonus comes from the Latin word for good, so one would assume that AIG gave the bonuses to their high performing employees. In fact, the opposite was true. The employees given the bonuses — the traders of the credit default swaps — were the very same ones that brought AIG and, in fact, the entire global financial system to its knees. A financial crisis seems an odd time to try a new management philosophy: reward for failure.
The current CEO of AIG recruited for the job by the Bush administration, Edward Liddy, has somehow found a way to defend these bonuses. If anything, this is proof that he should be fired. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Liddy wrote, “We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of the American taxpayers — if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury.”
The $165 million is only the first installment in a total bonus pool of $450 million. Seventy-three employees received more than $1 million dollars. Eleven employees granted bonuses, including one that received a $4.6 million bonus, are no longer with the firm. This obviates the argument that these bonuses are necessary for retention.
President Obama justifiably said that he “could not understand how anyone at AIG warranted a bonus.” He had asked Secretary Geithner to use every legal avenue to recover the money. (No chance of that happening.) Administration officials have known about these bonuses for months. I am wondering why they chose to react now instead of two weeks ago, when they gave AIG $30 billion more.
There was absolutely no need to pay retention bonuses to a group of employees that created $180 billion in losses. Where are they going to go? Liddy, AIG’s CEO, sounds like a battered wife making excuses for standing in the way of her bullying spouse’s fist.
Not so very long ago Mr. “No Earmarks” said the 8000 or so earmarks amounting to some $8 billion dollars was “…just a tiny fraction” of the ‘stimulus’ bill, and that it was OK because of all the good intentions he has…(I am paraphrasing). And that he and his cronies are/were appalled at the people at AIG who ‘mismanaged the company’ or ‘drove it into the ground’ or words to that effect, yet say the company ‘must be saved’ as it is “too big to fail”. So on the one hand they are furious at mismanagement and on the other, giving the mismanagers buckets and buckets of money, and screaming about the thimbles full of money paid out in bonuses, which are “just a tiny fraction” of the monies AIG received, yet they both knew about the bonuses, authorized them in the ‘porkulus’ bill, and don’t mind whatsoever that several dozens of billions of the money paid to AIG has been passed on to Leahman Bros and other, and through them onto banks in Europe.
I wouldn’t cross the street to piss on them if they were on fire. Shoot the teleprompter!
When Grassley suggests the executives at AIG should all commit Seppuku, he’s not taking a stand for ancient honor; he’s just feeding populist rage.
Indeed, I wonder if all the theatrics around AIG and the catastrophic failures of the past six months or so aren’t doing more to obscure the problem we have than to illuminate it.
For more, http://bit.ly/U6aXE
this morning Geithner says AIG must “promise” to compensate taxpayers the 165 million in perks BEFORE they get the 30 billion in MORE bail out money.
Promises, promises. GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
What the hell is he thinking?
What the hell are they ALL thinking???????
Okay now lets get this straight. Geitner is going to make AIG give him back the money they spent on bonuses. AIG will likely give it back since it isnt their money in the first place. ITS the TAXPAYERS money. ALL the while the money they gave the no good for nothing AIG execs. of which 11 took the money and ran, will be lost forever. Does Geitner think the American public is so stupid as to not see this little scam to appease the people. AIG HAS NO MONEY OF ITS OWN! WOW Gietner you need to go back to Wall Street. Mr Obama, watch out, Geitner is gonna make a CHUMP outta you! Glad I live in Canada today anyway.
This recent idiocy was virtually inevitable. These bail out programs are inherently too complicated to understand even for the most brilliant minds that have ever lived. AIG should have been compelled to go bankrupt. A judge would have automatically reevaluated the contracts. Instead, AIG received the government’s money—and essentially had to live up to its present contractual obligations. Legally, did it have any other choice? I don’t think so. Where might I be wrong?
Am I the only one who is far more alarmed by the casual disregard the Obama Administration and the author has for legal contracts than AIG bonuses? Last I checked, we are still supposedly a Rule of Law country. AIG was bailed out by the Feds so they would not go into bankruptcy – so they are required to honor their contracts, including employment contracts.
Here are the things that outrage me:
1. Bailouts
2. Bad Accounting Rules – The “Mark to Market” rule has cost the American taxpayer billions, maybe trillions, and Congress hasn’t fixed it yet.
Congress, the SEC, and FASB changed the rules on stock options enough times to basically end the practice. If all of these employees held AIG stock options instead of bonus agreements, we wouldn’t be worrying about their worthless options.
3. The slander being aimed at AIG employees to divert attention from the real issues. Very few of them had anything to do with AIG’s collapse.
4. Eliot Spitzer – While running for Governor, he sued and prosecuted long-time AIG CEO Hank Greenberg and others. He succeeded in forcing Greenberg out but none of the trumped up charges have stuck. The real scandal is that a politician forced out a competent CEO and management team and had them replaced with incompetents.
5. The Headline Driven, Undisciplined, Fickle, Incompetent Administration and Congress running major American companies.
To quibble with one rhetorical question, “Where would they go?”
I’ve never known an employee in private industry who worked at or above the level occupied by these executives to be blasted from their industry altogether simply on the basis of incompetence. There’s always a lateral transfer, a consultancy, a book deal that wedges one back in somewhere, a seat on a board, one’s own business (well capitalized).
It doesn’t change my view of the whole situation, but I believe that if these people left AIG over nonpayment of contracted bonuses, they’d have someplace to go.
This is just a dog and pony show. All choreographed to try to make Obama, the most polarizing figure in history, look good. They have known about this for a long time, and while the millions involved here may be an issue….
Why isn’t anyone mad that the billions going to ACORN aren’t being misused or better yet…..
Why aren’t you outraged at the billions and billions going to foreign banks??
Let’s take care of things in order of importance. You can be sure Obama and his circus are on the wrong end of importance.
“if these people left AIG over nonpayment of contracted bonuses, they’d have someplace to go”
Yes, it’s called Court – where they would win the payments they were due as well as their court costs.
The American government has foolishly assumed the debts of AIG. This is analogous to one co-signing a huge loan for their no-good, drunken brother-in-law. The dude doesn’t pay—-and the creditors come after them! What in hell did they think was going to happen?
The government has made a terrible mistake starting down the socialist path. The good news is this AIG mess will help clarify the implications for everyone. There are no winners in socialism. The government gets dumber. The private sector loses its freedom. The people lose their savings and their jobs. A few years of suffering should make this understandable to even the most ardent Obama supporters.
I believe that somewhere in the unread one thousand plus pages of the Stimulus Bill, there’s a stipulation (courtesy the Dodd guy) that OKs the bonuses.
Another thought:
If one guy can can say
“This is a great country, now let’s change it…” why can’t the AIG guys say
“Morality is great, we’re changing it…”
Old Soldier:
“Am I the only one who is far more alarmed by the casual disregard the Obama Administration and the author has for legal contracts than AIG bonuses?”
..no, you are not.
I am a software engineer that was just offered a position with a local company. After learning that they get a large amount of their revenue from AIG I declined the position. The real victims of corporate and federal irresponsibility are the seniors. They don’t have the earning capacity to replenish their assets. AIG is directly responsible for some of my mother’s financial losses. I have no desire to work for them even when jobs are not easy to come by.
I am not happy with what AIG is doing, but I’m damned mad at what this administration and this congress is doing.These are the people that caused the problem, and their fix is worst than the problem.Throwing money in every direction will only bankrupt the country.Are you not tired of hearing these same politicians blaming everybody but themselves for this mess? It’s time to throw them all out of office!
Geithner will soon understand the term, “thrown under the bus”. Obama will send him to that place quicker than a blink of the eye. Dodd will continue to pontificate and express outrage over payment of the bonuses knowing full well he was the one who inserted the provision in the bill and it stayed in. Now, Obama, Dodd, Frank, and all of the other Chicken Littles are in front of the cameras constantly decrying the nerve of AIG paying those who were primarily responsible for the problems with taxpayers money. The freaking idiots knew all along these payments would be made. Who the hell is fooling who here?
This administration makes the Bush guys look like freaking geniuses and financial wizards.
As much as it ticks me off knowing millions of taxpayer dollars was paid out under the guise of “legal” contracts, it disturbs me just as much knowing that the government has no problem stepping in and trying to negate contracts in a private industry, well at least one that used to be private.
What the hell is going on in Washington? The “gang that couldn’t shoot straight” at least knew what a gun was. This gang of educated incompetents has a problem distinguishing between a gun and their limp dicks. Considering the “brain trust” of Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank, and Kennedy, it is no wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world and losing intellectual property faster than we did our industrial base. When you add in the damn foolish behavior of Republicans when they were drunk with a little power, Americans have been used, abused, and abandoned to ideological fights between the two parties. All of the responsible adults left Washington a long time ago. The inmates are truly in charge of the asylum.
Now we have sound bite leaders dependent upon polls to tell them how to govern and what to do. We have a country that will soon have 40% supporting 60%. We will have program after program passed, placing a heavier burden on the taxable income base of the 40%. This intellectual lightweight called Obama has a vision of pure socialism no matter how he tries to disguise it under the guise of “Change”.
Buyer’s remose is a bitter pill to swallow and I see frowns on the faces of those who crossed over and supported Obama more and more each day. It is difficult not to ask, “What the hell were you thinking, or were you?”
When will Obama be returning his AIG bonus?….the $101K he accepted as a campaign bribe…err, contribution.
Democrats were the biggest recipients of AIG campaign donation money. At the top of the list are two people: Chris Dodd and Barack Obama.
This phony outrage is sickening! I hope that it backfires in Obama and Dodd’s face.
If you want to see the details about AIG’s contributions and who they went to, here is a link to an article about it at Wizbang: http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/03/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-aig-bailouts-and-bonuses.php
Lets see here…Congress drafts a document with input from treasury, POTUS then signs the document into law. When taxpayers get around to reading the document and express displeasure, congress, treasury and POTUS act like they are upset with their law. What a joke.
There is also too much silly talk concerning whether Tim Geithner should have known about the AIG bonus money. This is inherently going to happen when you are dispersing billions of dollars! It matters little if you are brilliant and hard working. The job is impossible.
The Congress approved this law, and after the fact want to make changes? The AIG executives presumably signed contracts. As long as AIG is in business, they have to honor the contracts.
It sure is easy to whip up the mob. I suppose that is why our incompetent Congress critters continue to get elected. Don’t blame me. I voted against all of mine, and will continue to do so.
If these contractual bonus obligations are in fact within the law and congress is able to recover the money by taxing it at 100%, we are in a lot of trouble. Does anyone remember Clinton’s retroactive tax increase?
Sad fact about this latest round of Kabuki theatre is that people will fall for it.
I’m with Old Soldier. It is appalling to see these silly, unethical Senators and Congressmen for life — who have wasted billions and billions of taxpayer money over the years, and become personally rich in the process — stand up in front of the country and say “we’re going to tax the bonuses these AIG people received 100%.” or “we’re going to take that money back”. It was these same Congressmen who voted to bail out AIG. If there was no language that prohibited bonuses, business jet travel, or anything else, then that’s that. Personally, I think the government has no business bailing out any company, but if they do, they need to specify BEFOREHAND any preconditions. If the government can now just take the bonus money back, then what prohibits them from just taking anyone’s money, personal property, or whatever? Rule of Law — goodbye. These congressional boobs may just be postering, but what they are saying is dangerous.
Everyone knew (or should have known) about these bonuses. Such bonuses are very common and anyone claiming surprise at them is either truly ignorant or simply hypocritical. They were in actuality specifically exempted in the AIG package and Chris Dodd is the likely author of this little gem, though he, on cue, disavows it now. We can debate all we want about the advisability of these payments, and executive pay in general, but the appropriate time to deal with them was when the package was first written.
Is there not a constitutional prohibition against the imposition of ex post facto laws? If Congress wants to prohibit future bonus payments by bailed-out companies, that is fine. But imposing such laws retroactively? They need to re-think that one.
I don’t know about AIG, but banks were promised that non-interference in matters of compensation.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/31/business/31plan.php
How and why did PJ get a HuffPo writer posting here? She shows zero knowledge of business, contract law, or economics, just the outrage fomented on the Daily Show. Most of all, there is no understanding whatsoever of how the politics of the left have inexorably and slowly shoved the US economy over the cliff in the last several decades.
By forcing the banks to make unsound mortgages to their favorite voting blocs, then putting the implied full backing of the federal government behind them through Fannie and Freddie, the left was the prime generator of the real estate bubble that just burst. Credit default swaps that caused AIG’s downfall were just Wall Street’s attempt to spread the risk around, which was necessitated because these poor loans were saturating the market.
Dodd, Frank, Raines, Gorelick, Carter and many others whose failed socialist policies caused this should be the ones falling on their swords. That is unfortunately the only way we shall ever be rid of some of them, because the nitwits that keep voting for them, like the writer of this post, have gotten their appreciation of capitalism from clones of Bill Ayers in our so-called “educational” (read: “indoctinational”) system, another left-wing failure.
The answer really is simple. The horse is already out of the barn. They can agree to return a substantial portion of the bonuses or get paid their contractually obligated bonuses….and get fired. Gone. See ya. Here is your box. This officer will escort you off the premises.
Then you start credentialing financial company executives like you do lawyers and accountants. Director level and above have to be eligible to practice before the SEC as an executive. Any executive who left a firm during a bankruptcy or within months of being bailed out must be re-credentialed before working for another financial company. Enumerate the requirements so that the Pols can’t be bribed into selling credentials for contributions: work in the industry for certain number of years at a certain level, education, etc. Execs who leave failed/failing firms cannot work for 5 years at a financial firm and must go to graduate level B school for certain number credits. (The ego deflation of being forced back to school is incentive enough for these egomaniacs.)
Congressional blowhard sessions, abuse of the tax system, or clearly unconstitutional after the fact laws will do more harm than good and this stupid dog and pony show being played now is shameful. Especially considering the people running these shows are enablers and in many cases participants in this disaster.
If I had a $ million bonus, I’d take the box and the escort – see ya losers.
The freaking idiots knew all along these payments would be made. Who the hell is fooling who here?
Mr. Liddy is a smart business executive that has shown us how
STUPID-
Barney Frank,
Chris Dodd, Charles Shumer_
Obama and all the other CongresIdiots that did not READ this bill.
STUPID FREAKING DEMOCRAT IDIOTS IN OUR GOVERNMENT NEED TO BE FIRED,
STARTING WITH TAX CHEAT GEITNER.
AIGs- Mr. Liddy has more freaking sense than all these dipsticks.
get with it people.
Why is it everyone is fixated on $160 mil in bonuses, that is chicken feed compared to the BILLIONS our own government forcefully took from us all.
Once again most are falling for the old shell game being played by the Obama administration .
No wonder a ZERO like obama can get elected in this country,too much of the voting public are nothing but a bunch of American Idol, Reality T.V. (now that’s a hilarious title for bs tv, “Reality” ?? ) watching fools, half of them can’t even tell you what party controls congress or name one Supreme Court Justice.
I mean after what’s the difference to them ya know.
How in heavens name can they be expected to know anything about how our country works and they are certainly too stupid to know and understand history to any degree of consequence.
The left has succeeded in creating a generation that is too dumb to know how bad they have been screwed. But it felt good to them at the time and that was all that mattered…..
Obama/Chavez 2012!
Why isn’t anyone angry about the BILLIONS that AIG funneled to foreign banks????????????
This is indeed a ginned-up verbal riot to focus the public on a few individuals, to distract from far greater issues.
I find it absolutely sickening (and frightening) to see Bawney Fwank attacking, once again, private citizens simply because they are willing to receive monies that were contractually promised to them over a year ago. THERE IS A WHOLE LOT REALLY, REALLY WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE, and we had better start reacting the the REAL and much bigger problems.
These bonuses are NOT the real problem, nor or they (by a long shot) the most threatening problem.
The idiot Congressmen who have promoted all of this are THREATENING PRIVATE CITIZENS!!!!! Does that not CONCERN you????
Hubby and I had taxable income of less than $10,000 this year, so do NOT make the assumption that I’m among the wealthy. I am an American who thinks that PRIVATE PROPERTY (INCLUDING PERSONAL FUNDS) IS STILL PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Congressmen are THREATENING PRIVATE CITIZENS with regard to their PRIVATE FUNDS.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why don’t these guys have a performance clause in their contract?
Now it seems Dodd has finally admitted he did insert the provision in the bill. After denial after denial by Dodd and his staff, the lying weasel finally comes clean on CNN. Is anyone surprised at the “audacity” of this crapweasel. Notice how I used the word “audacity”? Now watch as the rest of his lying comrades in socialism get in front of the cameras and say how “heroic” this lying piece of dung is for admitting the truth. His other enabler, Barack Obama will pat this POS on the back and tell us how a new day has arrived in Washington. Problem is that after Obama pats him on the back, he will wipe his feces covered hands on the American people just as he did when he agreed to accept public financing for his campaign then stab McCain in the back after McCain made it official on his part. What makes it so damn maddening is that not only does he expect the public to believe him, there are still idiots out there who will.
This man and his administration have lied, lied, lied, and continue to lie every day. And we are to accept the campaign rhetoric that he is different? During a total lapse of common sense one day after the election, I actually thought about giving him the benefit of the doubt. Damn am I glad I woke up before commiting to drinking the kool-aid.
George Bush had his faults and shortcomings but never did he reach the level of dishonesty Obama has demonstrated so far. I read his book, Dreams From my Father and knew where he was coming from but as I said, for one brief moment I almost gave in. So, if you haven’t read the book, borrow one from someone else if you can and read it. We are being set up for a failure of the capitalist market and we will be guided leap by leap into a socialist state with some remnants of captialism to placate the uneducated and ignorant who will actually continue to believe we live in a free society.
With all of their pseudo intellectual musings and accusations of Bush destroying the Constitution, more has been done by the Obamaites to destroy it in the last few weeks than Bush did in eight years. If this continues along the same path, Obama will have total control of ALL of our financial institutions before long. He has called for more control publically. He wants to dictate terms of private contracts. Even with the knowledge that AIG employees were incompetent, a contract is still a contract and should be upheld – even if they smell like a putrid skunk.
The only good news recently is that the generic polling shows Republicans have regained the lead among the voters polled. Not that they did anything to deserve it but maybe, just maybe the upcoming group will learn a lesson from the bloody battlefields of 2004 and 2008. Right now, that is about the only hope we have.
We, the US Taxpayers, thru our elected & appointed representatives have bailed out AIG to the tune of $170 Billion.
We have freely purchased the proverbial “Pig In A Poke”, a sack made out of spun platinum to boot.
We can scarcely complain if upon opening the sack we discover that the pig is coated in manure.
Please excuse my spelling – should be “capitalism” and “committing”
I think what the Executives of AIG did is on the verge of communism. I would like to ask our President if this is called Communism. A bunch of big Cat-Daddy Communist Boogers. Well, I could be wrong, but it seems to be a stage above Socialism to me.
I, Barack Hussein Soetoro Obama, do solemly swear to:
1. Unite this country!
2. Curb pork barrel spending!
3. Govern as a bi-partisan!
4. Have no lobbyists working in my administration!
5. Create the most ethical administration in the history of American government, and then back them one hundred percent when they get caught red handed!
6. Create six million new jobs!
7. Scratch number six. “Save” three and a half million jobs!
8. Ridicule my opponent for his “fundamentally sound” comment, and then, two months into my reign of terror, er, administration, repeat the same comment!
9. Screech “Doom and Gloom” and “Crisis and Catastrophe” every five seconds until I bankrupt the country, and then have a “divine revelation” that things “aren’t that bad”!
10. Buy a dog!
Yea man, right! You are one teleprompting piece of work! Here’s an idea… terminate Geithner! Don’t worry about Dodd, the primaries will deal with him at the end of his term, but your “most ethical administration in history” has some serious ethical issues!
1) bring back Elliot Spitzer. He alone jumped up and down screaming that NY banking and securities system was faulty and on the brink of collapse, 3 YEARS AGO. He knows the truth, the NY Fed is the most corrupt animal on the planet.
2) Stop allowing Govt to divert attention from the true problems; people focus on 400 Million in bonuses while hundreds of Billions being routed to European Banks thru AIG these last 6 months..WHY ARE US TAXPAYERS PAYING EUROPEAN BANKS??
3) the people writing Financial articles should research banking system a bit better before they write anything at all.
The feigned outrage over “bonuses” to AIG employees is like a three card monte game. The real purpose is distract the spectators while the card players confederates pick their pockets. AIG was a conduit for over $170 billion to its counter-parties like Goldman Sachs. The “bonuses” were 1/10th of 1% of that amount, and what is worse, 1/100th of 1% of the $1.5 trillion that Congress has appropriated since Jan 20. The spectators are the taxpayers. The three card monte players are the politicians.
If you don’t know who the mark is, you are the mark.
Old soldier, you and I would take the million $, but the guys that hit director level and above in these firms have egos and big ambitions and see these bonuses as just one years income. You shut down their future revenue stream and they will magically see the light.
I know it is little consolation for you and me, but the goal should be to get these guys to act with more than their next 12 months bonus in mind. Cutting them off from the good jobs (with an objective, non political measure) will have the effect of getting these guys to abandon some of their ambivalence to stupid risk.
Meryl is correct. These bonuses are chump change compared to the $150 billion of taxpayer money pumped through AIG and into sovereign and hedge funds and foreign banks. These were the counter parties to the AIG derivatives who are directly benefiting from our money. AIG is insolvent and should go bankrupt. Counter parties to these derivatives should get stiffed and stand in line in bankruptcy court with all the rest of the creditors. Depositors should be protected and bailed out.
There will be riots when the ordinary people find out they have been had and their kids will be enslaved to pay for this for the next 30 years!
Liddy displayed his own appalling ignorance and pitiful pandering to the drooling socialist crowd before him when he said, “I have seen the bad side of capitalism.” The housing bubble and contingent bad debt trading originated with, was promoted and protected by, the statist, special interest, and paid-for-by-lobbyist Democtartic scemes cooked up by Clinton.
The whole sorry scene reminded me of one directly out of Atlas Shrugged.
Can we NOW ask Frank Raines to return his gazillion dollar bonus, that he rec’d from Fannie by cooking the books, without being accused of “political lynching” by congressman John (Screw us} Lewis. If Mr. Raines is still “throwing the stones to” Barney
Frank, taxpayers can kiss that money goodbye forevah.
Alex – Elliot Spitzer is one of the root causes of this whole thing. He didn’t use his Attorney General’s office to fight crime. He used it as a campaign office.
Spitzer’s lawsuits against Greenberg and Grasso never accomplished anything positive (all against Grasso and most against Greenberg have been dropped). He and Obama have no respect for contracts – just headlines.
Congress can overturn a legal contract and single out citizens for 100% taxation? I say it’s we’re just weeks away from the citizens needing to take back the PEOPLE’S HOUSE.
Nice to know President Teleprompter is busy with Leno and his basketball bracket.
Pretty scary isn’t it? If they don’t like you, they just change the law to take all your stuff.
I hope none of the AIG employees return a sent – call their bluff. The Constitution specifically forbids bills of attainder and ex post facto laws. A big slap-down from the Court might wake them up.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section9
The bonuses do not matter, I repeat, they are irrelevent and are intended to distract you from what does matter: all the billions AIG sent out the back door to banks, mostly foreign, whose losses are being covered by the US taxpayer. You are looking in the wrong direction, it’s not the stupid bonus payments that matter. I even think the bonus was a set-up to make sure the counterparty list received less attention.
6. Old Soldier:
Am I the only one who is far more alarmed
No not at all.
this is exactly how Russia operates. They impose retroactive taxation of a punitive nature.
They can break contracts at will.
The White House is setting itself up to decide which contracts are enforcible.
Ugly Obama has the nerve to even suggest a charge on soldiers insurance after they enlisted understanding the VA covers their health. Tax planning days are over. We will wake up daily with surprises on what is or is not taxed.
Obama is crazy enough to tell a HMO they are now covering hospitals in Iraq? that is not part of their payor agreement.
On the other hand, This may all be showmanship.
“Is a member of Congress actually advocating suicide as a solution for a crisis caused by a lack of government regulation?”
Does not equal the correct:
“Is a member of Congress actually advocating suicide as a solution for a crisis caused by government regulation?”
And unless you can show that guy voted against attempts to reain in the GSE’s, you still don’t have the point you wanted to make.
BIG FAT FAILED FANNIE IS JUST LIKE AIG
This is just plain wrong!
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/big-fat-failed-fannie.html
Here is another view on the same subject.
http://mysticminutiae.blogspot.com/2009/03/congress-conducts-weekly-inquisition.html
Right on cue!!! The Democrats are starting to come out in defense of Dodd. One by one, they are circling the wagons and along with a willing press, his tale of woe will be regaled by all and in the end, it will be blamed on others. His fellow Democrats have started to slowly shift blame to Geithner and everyone else on the committee trying to implicate them as the primary initiators of the provision and Dodd being misled.
The so-called “watchdog” of our freedoms, the free press is anything but a free press anymore. With few exceptions, the press is in the pocket of a liberal, Democrat controlled congress and White House. When one dares to venture into questioning of a Democrat or Obamaite, the kid glove handling is sickening. If the situation were reversed and it were a Republican or Bush supporter, blood and guts would be strewn across the front pages and would be the lead-in story on every news broadcast with maybe one exception, FOX News.
This is the class warfare that’s been pedaled, planned and provoked. Anger the people enough that they’ll demand change without looking at the consequences.
Watch your rights become abridged under the guise of fairness and social justice. Do not let this expansion of Federal government stand.
Creating and targeting a scapegoat doesn’t fix very much.
I wonder how Obama will write into a law a back dated provision? I also wonder how they expect to tax the employees that are not in America. No one mentions how high the percentage of workers is that are not even in this country and under the IRS.
What we are witnessing through this political issue is one of the greatest concerns that our founding fathers expressed when they created this political system. They were most concerned with the potential for unscrupulous politicians who would whip up the masses to allow them impose their will a minority and deprive that group of their liberty. They were well aware that these corrupt politicians could easily deprive others of their property and/or their liberties with the full consent of the majority. In essessence using the “rule of law” to cover their trampling on individual rights. Our founders clearly understood that the fatal flaw with democracy is that it will tend to become a totalitarian state over time as one “populist” issue after another takes away our liberties. That was why they designed a constitution with limited federal authority and the maximum protections of life, liberty and property (all of which our government including the courts of chosen to ignore over the past 70 years).
We are now witnessing one of greatest fears of the founders coming true as we watch these current politicians use this trumped up issue to impose a full taking of ones property without just compensation as is required by the constitution. And the media is aiding and abetting this travesty by falling in line with this phony narrative of these corrupt politicians by continuing the story narrative of how these “executive bonuses” are a tragic misuse of taxpayer dollars while at the same time missing the larger issues of how our government is rapidly running down the path of totalitarianism disquise as “populism”. Yes it isn’t our bonuses that are being taken away by government today – but if we allow this outrageous actions to become “law” it is only a matter of time before we are all ensnared by this totalitarian trap.