I absolutely agree with Obama's outrage over AIG paying millions in bonuses to executives:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/16/obama-aig-remarks-full-te_n_175312.html
My problem, though, is how the fed, Congress, or any other goverment oversight outfit overseeing the use of bailout money did not know about those employment contracts before it gave AIG taxpayer money. No more freakin bailouts.
Quote from: guido911 on March 16, 2009, 11:46:37 AM
I absolutely agree with Obama's outrage over AIG paying millions in bonuses to executives:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/16/obama-aig-remarks-full-te_n_175312.html
My problem, though, is how the fed, Congress, or any other goverment oversight outfit overseeing the use of bailout money did not know about those employment contracts before it gave AIG taxpayer money. No more freakin bailouts.
The short answer is timing and priorities. When they cooked up the bailout bill last fall they were trying to avert a complete and imminent collapse of the financial system.
I suspect that we'll see our "pound of flesh" eventually (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article5840962.ece).
QuoteMr Bernanke, in testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, said there was no alternative, even though AIG had been irresponsible."We know that failure of major financial firms in a financial crisis can be disastrous for the economy. We really had no choice," he told the panel.
Yesterday, AIG confirmed it would give the US government a large stake in its two largest divisions as part of a $30 billion lifeline that could lead to a break-up of the 90-year-old insurer. The company, which lost nearly $100 billion in 2008, has been slammed by losses on its credit default swaps that guarantee mortgage-linked securities
The financial services division is history. Each and every one of those turds will be out on the street soon, and nobody will hire them EVER again. I suspect many will end up in jail, eventually.
It's important to hold these fools accountable, but there will be plenty of time to do that. Right now, this year, we still need to figure out how to get capital flowing again. Priorities and timing.
Quote from: guido911 on March 16, 2009, 11:46:37 AM
I absolutely agree with Obama's outrage over AIG paying millions in bonuses to executives:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/16/obama-aig-remarks-full-te_n_175312.html
My problem, though, is how the fed, Congress, or any other goverment oversight outfit overseeing the use of bailout money did not know about those employment contracts before it gave AIG taxpayer money. No more freakin bailouts.
Come on Guido. There's no time to do investigation. Heck, there isn't even time to read a bill before it gets signed. We're in a crisis, and you don't want to waste a crisis. The administration needs to buy as many voting blocks as it can, because that's what they have experience in. If they pause for even the slightest moment, the economy may begin to recover before a single stimulus payment goes out, or a single project gets built. That would spell disaster, because it would show complete ineptitude.
It's a big gamble, as they wing it and hope for the best. Words and actions no longer have meaning or carry consequence. You will only beat yourself up over the next four years if you believe they do. Only the outcome will carry judgment.
The administration can do as it pleases, and say what it wants. The locks are broken. Public participation is no longer necessary. The worshipers cannot have their minds changed.
Sit back and enjoy the ride, no matter how splendid or terrifying. To rage against it, will simply diminish you.
Just my thoughts.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 12:22:59 PM
Come on Guido. There's no time to do investigation. Heck, there isn't even time to read a bill before it gets signed. We're in a crisis, and you don't want to waste a crisis. The administration needs to buy as many voting blocks as it can, because that's what they have experience in. If they pause for even the slightest moment, the economy may begin to recover before a single stimulus payment goes out, or a single project gets built. That would spell disaster, because it would show complete ineptitude.
It's a big gamble, as they wing it and hope for the best. Words and actions no longer have meaning or carry consequence. You will only beat yourself up over the next four years if you believe they do. Only the outcome will carry judgment.
The administration can do as it pleases, and say what it wants. The locks are broken. Public participation is no longer necessary. The worshipers cannot have their minds changed.
Sit back and enjoy the ride, no matter how splendid or terrifying. To rage against it, will simply diminish you.
Just my thoughts.
Fair enough.. Now I just hope you had the same feelings about Bush.
Quote from: Trogdor on March 16, 2009, 12:27:14 PM
Fair enough.. Now I just hope you had the same feelings about Bush.
I did.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 12:22:59 PM
Come on Guido. There's no time to do investigation. Heck, there isn't even time to read a bill before it gets signed. We're in a crisis, and you don't want to waste a crisis. The administration needs to buy as many voting blocks as it can, because that's what they have experience in. If they pause for even the slightest moment, the economy may begin to recover before a single stimulus payment goes out, or a single project gets built. That would spell disaster, because it would show complete ineptitude.
It's a big gamble, as they wing it and hope for the best. Words and actions no longer have meaning or carry consequence. You will only beat yourself up over the next four years if you believe they do. Only the outcome will carry judgment.
The administration can do as it pleases, and say what it wants. The locks are broken. Public participation is no longer necessary. The worshipers cannot have their minds changed.
Sit back and enjoy the ride, no matter how splendid or terrifying. To rage against it, will simply diminish you.
Just my thoughts.
I fear you are about to draw the ire of the typical Obama spooners.
Quote from: Trogdor on March 16, 2009, 12:27:14 PM
Fair enough.. Now I just hope you had the same feelings about Bush.
If Gweed did, we never saw 'em. That's my whole point. Where was the outrage when Bush was removing liberties? Suspension of habeas corpus? End-arounding FISA? Then he starts this campaign of mock outrage at our current president when things go bad, but has nothing to say good when they go good (last weeks DIU uptick). Where was the outrage when the Repubs had control of Congress and essentially rubber-stamped every bill sent to them on the insistence of GWB?
Never mind though; it's Gweed's
modus operandiGas, though, I can say, did freely offer up criticisms when they were warranted, at least along his beliefs (which I have no problem with; I respect him more than most conservatives for not blindly following the CIC).
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 12:22:59 PMJust my thoughts.
The economy's fixing itself? That's a relief!
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 12:33:46 PM
I did.
Well that is great, it is nice to see people not changing their definition of what is right and wrong based on if there is an R or a D after their name. After the Democratic Congress and the Republican Administration started us down this path of bailouts, I don't know when to get off. After you throw your first several hundred billion in the hole, maybe another 200 will fill it up? Not the best situation but it is a gamble you have to take. You are right, Obama has an interest in the "stimulus" to prove or fake that it worked. I don't see how any bill is too crucial to read (Patriot Act, Stimulus Bill). I would rather lose money than freedoms. But still it is the same thing. I am glad there is somebody that would be just as angry as the quick signing of both of those bills as they were of the fact that Bush's financial buddies showed up one day and said "If we don't throw money at this today we are all screwed!" Really... Nobody knew a month ago this was a very real possibility?
With all due respect Guido. I am getting fatigued by your constant grasping for controversy. It's almost as bad as FOTD. Plugging this news source, and that news source. We can all read Drudge.
I admire your tenacity, but even great failures deserve a degree of quiet consideration. Let them build their temples or dig their graves.
No, I do not agree with how the current administration is conducting the affairs of this country. I think it's reckless and loose, but I don't see a need to rail on Vice President Biden every time he opens his mouth and f@rts. Former President Bush was no better with his tounge.
Sure I was critical in the past when there was a benefit to pointing out the weakness of the candidates, but the election is over, and personally I don't think that the Obama administration requires any criticism or side discussion. They are doing a far better job of showing their weaknesses than even the most hardcore critic could ever attempt to illuminate.
The more you hammer President Obama with regurgitated negative news stories, the more you strengthen his persona in the minds of his followers. You can't fight a God.
Slowly the polish is fading, and through his own limited abilities and shortcomings he is becoming flesh. His own followers will devour him for this. It's beginning to happen.
Quote from: Trogdor on March 16, 2009, 12:48:17 PM
I would rather lose money than freedoms.
There are times when both are lost simultaneously. I'm sure Mr. Paulson saw the impending implosion of the financial sector and thought of the many times in history in which financial turmoil has led to authoritarian leadership. Of course, being a finance type, he would see any market correction in that light, as a catastrophe, not as a natural result of bubble economics.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 01:06:36 PM
With all due respect Guido. I am getting fatigued by your constant grasping for controversy. It's almost as bad as FOTD. Plugging this news source, and that news source. We can all read Drudge.
I admire your tenacity, but even great failures deserve a degree of quiet consideration. Let them build their temples or dig their graves.
No, I do not agree with how the current administration is conducting the affairs of this country. I think it's reckless and loose, but I don't see a need to rail on Vice President Biden every time he opens his mouth and f@rts. Former President Bush was no better with his tounge.
Sure I was critical in the past when there was a benefit to pointing out the weakness of the candidates, but the election is over, and personally I don't think that the Obama administration requires any criticism or side discussion. They are doing a far better job of showing their weaknesses than even the most hardcore critic could ever attempt to illuminate.
The more you hammer President Obama with regurgitated negative news stories, the more you strengthen his persona in the minds of his followers. You can't fight a God.
Slowly the polish is fading, and through his own limited abilities and shortcomings he is becoming flesh. His own followers will devour him for this. It's beginning to happen.
I appreciate threads like the one about Obama and saying that he wouldn't oppose taxing health benefits if it came forward, I might not have known otherwise. The issue is the way you try to spin it to say he IS doing this and is actively trying to get it done. That takes away from the obvious hypocrisy of the statement. I also don't think that people think Obama is a "God". Most of it is the way the criticism is given and the fact that everything is a "attack" with varying levels of truth. That makes people want to try to balance out the attack. It is the same thing you get when you try/tried to say anything about Bush with a lot of die hard Republicans. You might disagree, but I think if all the Red states elected their democrats and all the blue states elected the Republicans (or everybody elected independents) the country would be a lot better off.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 01:06:36 PM
With all due respect Guido. I am getting fatigued by your constant grasping for controversy. It's almost as bad as FOTD. Plugging this news source, and that news source. We can all read Drudge.
I admire your tenacity, but even great failures deserve a degree of quiet consideration. Let them build their temples or dig their graves.
No, I do not agree with how the current administration is conducting the affairs of this country. I think it's reckless and loose, but I don't see a need to rail on Vice President Biden every time he opens his mouth and f@rts. Former President Bush was no better with his tounge.
Sure I was critical in the past when there was a benefit to pointing out the weakness of the candidates, but the election is over, and personally I don't think that the Obama administration requires any criticism or side discussion. They are doing a far better job of showing their weaknesses than even the most hardcore critic could ever attempt to illuminate.
The more you hammer President Obama with regurgitated negative news stories, the more you strengthen his persona in the minds of his followers. You can't fight a God.
Slowly the polish is fading, and through his own limited abilities and shortcomings he is becoming flesh. His own followers will devour him for this. It's beginning to happen.
Um, Gasman, if you look at this thread I started you will see I am AGREEING with Obama. Where in this thread am I hammering him? Also, if you don't like the fact that I cited Huffington Post, then try this one:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96V8OM00&show_article=1
You will see it is an AP story.
Quote from: guido911 on March 16, 2009, 01:30:00 PM
Um, Gasman, if you look at this thread I started you will see I am AGREEING with Obama. Where in this thread am I hammering him? Also, if you don't like the fact that I cited Huffington Post, then try this one:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96V8OM00&show_article=1
You will see it is an AP story.
I guess I've just developed Obama fatigue.
Who is John Gault?
Quote from: guido911 on March 16, 2009, 01:30:00 PM
Um, Gasman, if you look at this thread I started you will see I am AGREEING with Obama. Where in this thread am I hammering him? Also, if you don't like the fact that I cited Huffington Post, then try this one:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96V8OM00&show_article=1
You will see it is an AP story.
Guido, we all know this was a softball to try to say that you don't hate Obama that much because he said something you liked :)
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 01:37:15 PM
I guess I've just developed Obama fatigue.
Who is John Gault?
You are right about overly hammering Obama and I am going to cut down. It's just that the media is so in love with him and his muscle-bound wife that it refuses to fairly and objectively report on him. Seriously, do you think the public knows that a "cap and trade" policy going to increase everyone's (not just those evil wealthy people's) monthly utility bill?
Quote from: Trogdor on March 16, 2009, 01:50:43 PM
Guido, we all know this was a softball to try to say that you don't hate Obama that much because he said something you liked :)
First of all, who is "we"? Second, this is not a softball issue. I am departing from how I normally consider government interference in and regulation of business as wrong. Speaking as someone (like many) who pays a crap ton in taxes, I do not want to, in the words of Santelli, "reward bad behavior", which is exactly what paying these bonuses is doing.
Also, I do not "hate" Obama, I detest in large measure what he stands for.
Quote from: guido911 on March 16, 2009, 01:54:54 PM
You are right about overly hammering Obama and I am going to cut down. It's just that the media is so in love with him and his muscle-bound wife that it refuses to fairly and objectively report on him. Seriously, do you think the public knows that a "cap and trade" policy going to increase everyone's (not just those evil wealthy people's) monthly utility bill?
Those that don't understand will learn.
Those who cannot learn through words, will learn through experience.
Several things are taking place that will have very very interesting outcomes. President Obama has left no room to exit. All the measures being passed will have direct and measurable outcomes that the administration, and the party, will own completely.
The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. – Hilaire Belloc To control wealth is to enslave.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 16, 2009, 01:06:36 PM
With all due respect Guido. I am getting fatigued by your constant grasping for controversy. It's almost as bad as FOTD. Plugging this news source, and that news source. We can all read Drudge.
Please. Do not use the devil's name in vain but in vein, perhaps.
Quote from: FOTD on March 16, 2009, 02:27:52 PM
Someone's been given the keys to their cage....
:o
Quote from: FOTD on March 16, 2009, 02:27:52 PM
Please. Do not use the devil's name in vain but in vein, perhaps.
Welcome back.
Was it 50 lashes, or do you have to do someone's laundry for a month?
So tell us, what's going on over at Huffington?
But seriously, welcome back.
So I guess we won't be hearing from RipTout any more.
FWIW, the people actually in charge (Congress handed the purse to Treasury) said there were contracts already in place to pay out said bonuses. If they did not pay them out litigation would have ensured and the result would have been legal fees AND paying out the bonuses. Congress should have conditioned the money on many things including the ability to rework compensation packages (as they should do with the automakers) in such a way as to make it fair but NOT drive away quality labor. Unfortunately, getting people that can run a multi billion dollar company is expensive. Since I own a stake in the company as a tax payer, I want qualified people.
Not that I'm defending the bonus structure. I'd also want performance bonuses and a rational basis for compensation. If your company goes into receivership (basically) odds are at least SOME of the executives didn't do their damn jobs.
I'd love to see companies restructure their entire bonus packages. Make them stock of which you can sell no more than 10% of the original allotment in a given year (minimum 10 year holding). Something to make them long term liable. Most these guys are not at the same job for more than a couple years, an acquittance of mine that works as a high level executive says if you are at the same job for more than 3 years your career has stagnated. Hard to get a long strategy with people like that I imagine . . .
QuoteSo I guess we won't be hearing from RipTout any more.
And here I thought I was clever for figuring that out. New forum, new chance I guess. Behave yourself AOX, I enjoy the, ummm, the discussion you bring to the forum.
Obama Asks Geithner to Find Way to Rescind AIG Payouts (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123721970101743003.html)
QuoteIt was unclear what legal options the government can pursue to stop the bonus payments. Monday afternoon, a White House official said the Treasury Department will use a planned $30 billion infusion into AIG to compel the company to repay the bonuses promised to employees of its financial-products group, which is responsible for selling the exotic financial instruments that brought the company to near-collapse.
Now if he'll just include "Fire all those A-holes" as a stipulation. That's retribution even Guido can believe in!
Quote from: Chicken Little on March 16, 2009, 03:55:23 PM
Obama Asks Geithner to Find Way to Rescind AIG Payouts (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123721970101743003.html) Now if he'll just include "Fire all those A-holes" as a stipulation. That's retribution even Guido can believe in!
You better believe that. Also, those that gave the bailout money without knowing that it would be used to pay bonuses must also go.
Quote from: guido911 on March 16, 2009, 04:15:27 PM
You better believe that. Also, those that gave the bailout money without knowing that it would be used to pay bonuses must also go.
Ahh, that would be slobbering Barney, and he will never go.
(New York AG) Cuomo To AIG: Give Me Information Or Face Subpoenas, Court (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/16/cuomo-to-aig-give-me-info_n_175354.html)
QuoteUPDATE 4:28 P.M.: As New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's 4 P.M. deadline has not been met, he will be issuing subpoenas. "Four o'clock has come and gone and we will be issuing subpoenas immediately," Cuomo said on a conference call. "I believe in transparency and disclosure ... this is taxpayer money ... We do want fairness -- we don't want absurd use of taxpayer money."
"The whole notion of performance bonuses is oxymoronic when it comes to AIG," he added. "It's adding insult to injury." He questioned why AIG claims their hands are tied. "Then let me see the contract, and let me see when you signed it and what the expectation was when you signed it," he said. He is looking into charges of fraudulent conveyance.
* * * * *
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is demanding detailed information as to who at AIG will receive controversial bonuses and whether those individuals were involved in any way with the insurance giant's meltdown and subsequent need for taxpayer bailout funds.
Quote from: Chicken Little on March 16, 2009, 04:48:23 PM
(New York AG) Cuomo To AIG: Give Me Information Or Face Subpoenas, Court (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/16/cuomo-to-aig-give-me-info_n_175354.html)
Good.
File under, uhhhh.....
GOP Opposes Pay Limits On Bailed-Out Bankers (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/06/gop-opposes-pay-limits-on_n_164544.html)
QuoteSen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that he is "one of the chief defenders of Obama on the Republican side" for the president's efforts to reach across the aisle. But, said Inhofe, "as I was listening to him make those statements I thought, is this still America? Do we really tell people how to run [a business], and who to pay and how much to pay?"
This was a month ago. Somebody better ask him to revise his statement.
I am hearing that Dodd and a congressman are thinking of taxing those bonuses at some ginormous rate (98%). Probably unconstitutional, but I am squarely with them on this conceptually. Still, somebody in the government at some point really dropped the ball as well by not getting some strings attached to the bail out money and needs equal disparagement.
Quote from: cannon_fodder on March 16, 2009, 03:12:09 PM
FWIW, the people actually in charge (Congress handed the purse to Treasury) said there were contracts already in place to pay out said bonuses. If they did not pay them out litigation would have ensured and the result would have been legal fees AND paying out the bonuses. Congress should have conditioned the money on many things including the ability to rework compensation packages (as they should do with the automakers) in such a way as to make it fair but NOT drive away quality labor. Unfortunately, getting people that can run a multi billion dollar company is expensive. Since I own a stake in the company as a tax payer, I want qualified people.
Not that I'm defending the bonus structure. I'd also want performance bonuses and a rational basis for compensation. If your company goes into receivership (basically) odds are at least SOME of the executives didn't do their damn jobs.
I'd love to see companies restructure their entire bonus packages. Make them stock of which you can sell no more than 10% of the original allotment in a given year (minimum 10 year holding). Something to make them long term liable. Most these guys are not at the same job for more than a couple years, an acquittance of mine that works as a high level executive says if you are at the same job for more than 3 years your career has stagnated. Hard to get a long strategy with people like that I imagine . . .
And here I thought I was clever for figuring that out. New forum, new chance I guess. Behave yourself AOX, I enjoy the, ummm, the discussion you bring to the forum.
You are correct about the bonuses being contracted for salary and there could have been litigation. But hey, why do the UAW workers have to renegotiate their contracts and not AIG employees? Easy solution. Stop with the freakin bailouts.
I'm not arguing in favor of bonuses. Just giving a rationale for the decision. For icing on the cake; most of the bonuses are for the London division that was in charge of derivatives (read: caused the problem).
Well, it apparently turns out that Chris Dodd, the man wanting to tax the AIG executives that received bonuses 98% of that bonus, was responsible for providing the mechanism so these executives could receive these bonuses:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/dodd-cracks-aig---time/
I wrote "apparently" because, after all, the article is from Fixed News Business.
Quote from: guido911 on March 17, 2009, 10:58:24 AM
Well, it apparently turns out that Chris Dodd, the man wanting to tax the AIG executives that received bonuses 98% of that bonus, was responsible for providing the mechanism so these executives could receive these bonuses:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/dodd-cracks-aig---time/
I wrote "apparently" because, after all, the article is from Fixed News Business.
While Dodd probably didn't add the bonus protection clause specifically for AIG, I agree, it wasn't a smart move. There've been bonus issues with other bailout recipients as well, though AIG's is by far the most visible.
Why these CEOs can't see just how tone deaf they look when doling out bonuses -- legal or not -- is beyond me. It's the equivalent of taking the private jet to your congressional hearings. It just makes everybody look filthy, and that includes the company, the recipients of the bonuses, the government, and us, for trusting that the companies might do the right thing unprompted. Everyone looks bad.
It also seriously hampers any chance that the Obama Administration could get more money for aid in the future (of which there have been rumblings on and off for awhile now).
Quote from: we vs us on March 17, 2009, 11:46:31 AM
While Dodd probably didn't add the bonus protection clause specifically for AIG...
Man I hope you are right. But when Dodd gets more campaign capital from AIG than any other politician, one has to wonder (or adjust the aluminum foil deflector beenie). I see the NY AG is claiming that 73 AIG execs got at least $1M in bonus money.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96VTRDG0&show_article=1
I am sure that's going to go over well with those standing in an unemployment line somewhere.
One side benfit....bipartisanship.....for a change!
http://www.reuters.com/article/BANKSL/idUSN1548834720090315
Guido, you got to appeciate Grasley's comments.
No FOTD. I've simply come aware that it makes me feel bad to debate people that operate in a different capacity. You guys simply think in a different way.
Debate fuels the engine that emotional people run on, and in the process reality is burned just as surely as diesel.
You don't realize that your prize is your gloat. . . and that is your only prize.
Leaders of men do not descend from heaven and give you things, they only have the power to slack your chains or pull them tight.
The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves. – Dresden James
Here is a fun article published today on the AIG crisis. Essentially everyone in Washington new or should have known it was coming and didn't care. OBama and Dodd were received the largest campaign contributions from AIG's failed division ($100,000+ from the one getting the bonuses). And no one, from either party, was really interested in this "problem" until the news papers got interested. Cash out the door will fix the economy, we need to send trillions out to failing businesses NOW! NOW!!!
Spare Us Your Fake Fury, DC Hypocrites. (http://"http://www.nypost.com/seven/03182009/news/columnists/spare_us_your_fake_fury__dc_hypocrites_160098.htm")
Quote from: cannon_fodder on March 18, 2009, 09:10:41 AM
Here is a fun article published today on the AIG crisis. Essentially everyone in Washington new or should have known it was coming and didn't care. OBama and Dodd were received the largest campaign contributions from AIG's failed division ($100,000+ from the one getting the bonuses). And no one, from either party, was really interested in this "problem" until the news papers got interested. Cash out the door will fix the economy, we need to send trillions out to failing businesses NOW! NOW!!!
Spare Us Your Fake Fury, DC Hypocrites. (http://"http://www.nypost.com/seven/03182009/news/columnists/spare_us_your_fake_fury__dc_hypocrites_160098.htm")
CF,
Dodd wrote this "amendment" into the stimulus bill the NIGHT BEFORE IT WAS PASSED. Of course no one had an opportunity to read it. There was no reason to write this in at the 11th hour unless it was specifically requested by AIG execs. He was serving his masters at our expense.
He got caught, now he's acting like he's outraged. News outlets are not reporting it to the sheep, and they wouldn't care anyway while the spell is still in effect. The federal government will have no recourse in this unless they set a president by negating contract law, and therefore, doing irreparable harm to the legal system.
We got screwed, get used to it.
The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary.
Yeah, there's that too. Which points to the bigger issue of everyone watching the whips thumb instead of actually reading the damn bills. But it still means the issue was out there for a month before anyone cared to say something, if not longer.
Quote from: cannon_fodder on March 18, 2009, 10:40:45 AM
Yeah, there's that too. Which points to the bigger issue of everyone watching the whips thumb instead of actually reading the damn bills. But it still means the issue was out there for a month before anyone cared to say something, if not longer.
It took that long for groups to translate the PDF scanned bill into searchable text and then find the damage.
I estimate that this bill will be topic for the next year or more as we find out what exactly was passed by the marauders.
You just gotta laugh now.
News is just coming out that Merrill Lynch execs got 3.4 Billion in bonuses from the TARP funds, and several Fannie May execs each got $644,000 bonuses, and more to come.
I'm not upset with President Obama, after all, he did not get a chance to read the bill.
He was taken advantage of, but now it's his responsibility to take control of the situation.
There is little legal recourse to this, it is simply something that the president can say he's learned from.
I think he will be far more cautious in the future when signing something that Pelosi puts on his desk.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 18, 2009, 02:49:42 PM
You just gotta laugh now.
News is just coming out that Merrill Lynch execs got 3.4 Billion in bonuses from the TARP funds, and several Fannie May execs each got $644,000 bonuses, and more to come.
I'm not upset with President Obama, after all, he did not get a chance to read the bill.
He was taken advantage of, but now it's his responsibility to take control of the situation.
There is little legal recourse to this, it is simply something that the president can say he's learned from.
I think he will be far more cautious in the future when signing something that Pelosi puts on his desk.
Gaspar, come on man I thought you were better than this.
"The Financial Times reported that Merrill Lynch accelerated its normal time schedule for awarding bonuses and distributed $ 4 billion dollars on Dec 29, just 3 days before its takeover by Bank of America. At the same time Merrill posted $15 billion in losses for the fourth quarter. The total compensation for Merrill Lynch employees in 2008 was $15 billion."
Assuming when you said "I'm not upset with President Obama, after all, he did not get a chance to read the bill." I am assuming you are talking about the fact that since he wasn't President and didn't SIGN the TARP bill in the first place he didn't read it? This is done on Bush's watch. You can bring Pelosi into it all you want but you shouldn't try dragging Obama in on it. A MAJORITY of the bank bailouts happened under Bush.
It was Paulson. Skin head engineer of the collapse....saved his buddies....screwed the taxpayers....republicanized the numbers on behalf of those in charge long before BO. It was Paulson who failed to stipulate controls while giving out corporate welfare checks.
Quote from: Trogdor on March 18, 2009, 02:54:08 PM
Gaspar, come on man I thought you were better than this.
"The Financial Times reported that Merrill Lynch accelerated its normal time schedule for awarding bonuses and distributed $ 4 billion dollars on Dec 29, just 3 days before its takeover by Bank of America. At the same time Merrill posted $15 billion in losses for the fourth quarter. The total compensation for Merrill Lynch employees in 2008 was $15 billion."
Assuming when you said "I'm not upset with President Obama, after all, he did not get a chance to read the bill." I am assuming you are talking about the fact that since he wasn't President and didn't SIGN the TARP bill in the first place he didn't read it? This is done on Bush's watch. You can bring Pelosi into it all you want but you shouldn't try dragging Obama in on it. A MAJORITY of the bank bailouts happened under Bush.
LOL I guess I really didn't make myself clear.
That was my point. AIG is business as usual.
We were assured that the old way was not going to be the new way. We were promised change. The TARP bill was a CRIME in the old administration, and we are getting another dose of it in the first 60 days of this administration.
I am not blaming Obama. He had no way to know in such a short time, what he was being pushed into.
Quote from: FOTD on March 18, 2009, 02:57:28 PM
It was Paulson. Skin head engineer of the collapse....saved his buddies....screwed the taxpayers....republicanized the numbers on behalf of those in charge long before BO. It was Paulson who failed to stipulate controls while giving out corporate welfare checks.
If so, lets make sure it never happens again. Agreed?
You weren't clear. You said "I think he will be far more cautious in the future when signing something that Pelosi puts on his desk." Which makes it seem like the previous bonuses were because he signed a bill. I believe no matter WHO was elected President (except maybe Ron Paul). There is significant pressure to continue to bail out the banks as we already threw money in the hole. It is like when you have a car that is worth $6,000 and the transmission goes out. You throw in $3,000 for a new transmission because you liked the car. Then something else goes out (which your mechanic Paulson already knew was going to break) and you are faced with another situation. Well I already put $3,000 in what is an extra grand. Etc. Etc.
Quote from: Trogdor on March 18, 2009, 04:12:30 PM
You weren't clear. You said "I think he will be far more cautious in the future when signing something that Pelosi puts on his desk." Which makes it seem like the previous bonuses were because he signed a bill. I believe no matter WHO was elected President (except maybe Ron Paul). There is significant pressure to continue to bail out the banks as we already threw money in the hole. It is like when you have a car that is worth $6,000 and the transmission goes out. You throw in $3,000 for a new transmission because you liked the car. Then something else goes out (which your mechanic Paulson already knew was going to break) and you are faced with another situation. Well I already put $3,000 in what is an extra grand. Etc. Etc.
Perhaps it's not actually the transmission. The mechanic keeps missing things. A $10 shift modulator just cost you a $3,000 transmission that you didn't need.
Another shoe just fell:
(Reuters) - Some of the billions of dollars the U.S. government paid to bail out American International Group Inc stand to benefit hedge funds that bet on a falling housing market, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter and reviewed documents.
Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Deutsche Bank sold financial instruments to hedge funds letting them bet that mortgage defaults would rise, the paper said, adding that the instruments were credit default swaps -- a form of insurance that pays out in the event of a debt default.
LOL
We just spent tax payer money to bet against ourselves.
Priceless.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 18, 2009, 04:17:59 PM
LOL
We just spent tax payer money to bet against ourselves.
Priceless.
Not really. We spent taxpayer money to float AIG so that their huge CDS exposure wouldn't destroy other financial firms who would have to pay out in the event of an AIG default. Hedging has become so endemic in the last 10 years that firms are bound together more tightly than ever through whack job derivatives.
Sure would have been nice if we had regulated CDS as the insurance it actually is.
Then there are the assholes buying CDS as a pure gamble, rather than actually hedging against default. It should be more like life insurance. You can't just go out and buy it on any random person..you have to stand to lose if the person dies.
"THE PROBLEM IS, THEY (AIG) FEEL THAT EVEN IF THEY PICK A FINAL FOUR OF ALL NO. 16 SEEDS, THE GOVERNMENT WILL JUST STEP IN AGAIN TO MAKE UP THEIR LOSSES." Don Davis
By now we all know Chris Dodd has flat lied about his knowledge of the bonus protection provision. Now he is saying that he was told by the Obama administration to ensure that language was in the statute:
Dodd told CNN that he had agreed to change his amendment -- at the request of the Obama administration -- to ensure that previously enacted bonus contracts would be honored despite billions of dollars awarded to bailout beneficiaries.
"The alternative was losing the amendment entirely," he told the network. Administration officials feared that without the language the bailout measure would be deluged with lawsuits, Dodd said.
http://www.connpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11941706
All this "Outrage" that I had supported Obama over is nothing but contrived crap.
Well, I've gotten a little perspective on it now.
AIG was nearing total ruin. Employees were fleeing for greener pastures when they needed people who knew what was going on the most. They had to retain employees to salvage anything of the company.
So to stop people form leaving they offered bonuses to stay. "If you stay with AIG for one full year and risk losing your job and AIG being unable to pay these bonuses at all, we will pay you a retention bonus of $X." Some took the bonus and stayed, gambling that they would get paid. Others took the sure thing and got jobs elsewhere.
It doesn't totally change my mind. But if I stuck with a risky company that appeared to be failing because they said they needed me and offered me a bonus if I stayed, and then I got screwed out of that bonus - I'd be livid. I could have left and made more money elsewhere but stayed in RELIANCE on the contracts.
It's out governments fault for not bothering to look into these matters. If they had reviewed the contract initially and offered a do-or-die revision it'd be easier for be to swallow. As it stands, it sucks for the employees getting the bonuses and the tax payers covering them. But not-so-much for the politicians . . .
As predicted, they did it. They passed a tax at 90% on AIG execs. Many people rejoice. Many people believe they are simply correcting a mistake. Unfortunately these scholarly lawmakers forgot one thing. They forgot the law. They are trying to deprive some individuals of property that is rightfully and lawfully theirs without accusing them of a crime and without the benefit of any trial.
Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5 - United States Constitution
"No bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."
They did this for the media. It is against the law for anyone to enforce it, and they know it. They just don't want YOU to know it. A PR stunt for your amusement.
(http://gf77.com/untitled-2.jpg)
There's more details unfolding.
"Welcome back Elliot Spitzer. I hope we hear more from you very soon...your voice is needed in this matter."
"Spitzer may be as "disgraced" as any anonymous sex loving Republican loser, but America is known for its great second acts, and we may be witnessing the curtain rising on Spitzer's."
http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2009/03/hes-backthe-return-of-elliot-spitzer.html
"The relationship between AIG and Goldman goes back long enough that one would think that Goldman would know, having bought so much of this "insurance" or whatever it was, whether the "products" were ...er...real or feasible at all. Indeed, Goldman and AIG almost merged a few years ago, but Spitzer notes that the unknown black hole of AIG's business practices were probably what prevented it. Still, that didn't stop the incestuous dealings; it almost makes one think that this whole thing was a setup."
Was Eliot Spitzer taken out because he was going to bust AIG?
Ok, let me break it down a bit.
The law passed against the AIG execs by the congress is an "ex post facto law"
That is to say, it takes retroactive action against a group of people.
The AIG execs were not breaking any laws by accepting their bonuses. The bonuses were taxed by the federal government, and money exchanged hands.
This would be like the president and congress deciding to raise taxes to 90%. . . on everything you made from 2002 to present, and requiring you to pay that amount now.
Or how about passing a law that makes smoking illegal, and making it retroactive to last week, then attempting to jail everyone who had a cigarette last week.
It's not legal, and for good reason.
Again 99% of the US public will not get the joke, and think that important action was taken to recover these bonuses.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 20, 2009, 02:36:43 PM
Ok, let me break it down a bit.
The law passed against the AIG execs by the congress is an "ex post facto law"
That is to say, it takes retroactive action against a group of people.
The AIG execs were not breaking any laws by accepting their bonuses. The bonuses were taxed by the federal government, and money exchanged hands.
This would be like the president and congress deciding to raise taxes to 90%. . . on everything you made from 2002 to present, and requiring you to pay that amount now.
Or how about passing a law that makes smoking illegal, and making it retroactive to last week, then attempting to jail everyone who had a cigarette last week.
It's not legal, and for good reason.
Again 99% of the US public will not get the joke, and think that important action was taken to recover these bonuses.
This was all done for show and to turn the public's outrage at all those evil people who got retention bonuses.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 20, 2009, 02:36:43 PM
The law passed against the AIG execs by the congress is an "ex post facto law"
IIRC, the prohibition against ex post facto laws is only applicable to criminal statutes.
Additionally, whether it is in fact ex post facto in any sense of the phrase is up for debate, in that the 2008 tax year hasn't been settled yet, and this only applies to the 2009 tax year. Ex post facto would be Congress saying on April 16th 2010 that the tax rate for 2009 was increased.
It was not done for show only....it was done to get the Republicans on board for raising taxes....
Hopefully, the republicans running in 2010 will say they did it because of Paulson and Bush's lack of fiduciary duty protecting the US taxpayer.
Looks like the boss has an issue with AIG being called on the carpet for taking bailout bonuses and the resulting tax burden to these thiefs....bad move Rush. Your listeners might be turning on you!
Limbaugh defends AIG from "lynch mob" http://mediamatters.org/items/200903180001?f=h_latest
Quote from: nathanm on March 20, 2009, 02:47:03 PM
IIRC, the prohibition against ex post facto laws is only applicable to criminal statutes.
Additionally, whether it is in fact ex post facto in any sense of the phrase is up for debate, in that the 2008 tax year hasn't been settled yet, and this only applies to the 2009 tax year. Ex post facto would be Congress saying on April 16th 2010 that the tax rate for 2009 was increased.
Strange, that's not what the constitution says.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 20, 2009, 03:13:13 PM
Strange, that's not what the constitution says.
In the words of our Congress "constitution smonstitution".
FOTD, now's your chance, insert GWB constitution reference.
Quote from: Gaspar on March 20, 2009, 03:13:13 PM
Strange, that's not what the constitution says.
Strange that you completely ignored my second paragraph.
Quote from: Wikipedia
In the 1994 opinion United States v. Carlton, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that retroactive tax laws did not violate the constitutional prohibition on ex post facto legislation.
The better constitutional analysis in my opinion would be under the bill of attainder proscription. In SeaRiver Maritime Financial Holdings, Inc. v. Mineta , 309 F.3d 662, 668 -669 (C.A.9 (Alaska),2002), the Ninth Circuit explained:
The Constitution instructs Congress that "No Bill of Attainder ... shall be passed." U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 3. A bill of attainder is "a law that legislatively determines guilt and inflicts punishment upon an identifiable individual without provision of the protections of a judicial trial." The Bill of Attainder Clause implements the doctrine of separation of powers. "Just as Article III confines the Judiciary to the task of adjudicating concrete 'cases or controversies,' so too the Bill of Attainder Clause was found to 'reflect ... the Framers' belief that the Legislative Branch is not so well suited as politically independent judges and juries to the task of ruling upon the blameworthiness of, and levying appropriate punishment upon, specific persons.' "
Three key features brand a statute a bill of attainder: that the statute (1) specifies the affected persons, and (2) inflicts punishment (3) without a judicial trial.[/font]
[Internal citations omitted; punctuation in original]. See also, BellSouth Corp. v. F.C.C., 162 F.3d 678, 683-84 (D.C. Cir. 1998);Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc. v. Pataki, 292 F.3d 338, 350 (2nd Cir. (N.Y.) 2002). In discussing what constitutes "punishment, the U.S. Supreme Court in Selective Service System v. Minnesota Public Interest Research Group, 468 U.S. 841, 852, 104 S.Ct. 3348, 3355 (U.S.1984) identified three factors to be considered: "(1) whether the challenged statute falls within the historical meaning of legislative punishment; (2) whether the statute, viewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens imposed, reasonably can be said to further nonpunitive legislative purposes"; and (3) whether the legislative record "evinces a congressional intent to punish." [Citaion and punctuation omitted].
As such pertains to the tax on the AIG executive bonus tax, there is no question that such specifices a certain person, that being solely AIG executives. The second feature, punishment, is what is problematic. In Pataki, supra, the Second Circuit discussed "punishment" as follows:
Legislated punishment is not always easy to identify outside the traditional punishments of death or incarceration. Neither "the fact that harm is inflicted by governmental authority," nor "the severity of [the] sanction is ... determinative of its character as 'punishment,' ". Indeed, as traditionally conceived, punishment implicates a variety of values that, in other contexts, bear no necessary relation to punishment. For example, a judicial order of compensation in a negligence action imposes "harm" on the defendant-he must pay the damage award-but that harm is merely compensatory for the plaintiff's injury, not punitive. Compensation may be part of a punishment, on the other hand, as where a criminal defendant is ordered to make restitution to his victim. Similarly, deterrence may be a legitimate, nonpunitive goal, such as deterrence of unreasonable conduct produced by a damages award for negligence-but it is also a core component of punishment. Retribution may be one value that is limited to the arena of punishment, but it is not a necessary part of "punishment."
[Internal citations omitted; punctuation in original]. Pataki, 292 F.3d at 350.
There is little doubt that Congress seeks to recover the bonus money as means to undue what it perceives as improper payments to persons it believes does not deserve them. Is it "punishment"? AIG will certainly argue that Obama's "greed" comment and the all the outrage certainly can be construed as punishment. Further, given that the tax is 90%, one could consider the tax is both an imposition of harm on AIG executives and seeks "retribution." Pataki, supra. Really, who knows. Heck, this analysis may be entirely imperfect.
Sorry for the legalize. When I read citations to wikipedia to explain complicated legal principles, I feel it necessary to throw out some real law for people to read and digest so a more sound argument can be advanced.
Well, thank you Mr. President.
President Obama feels that the 90% tax on executive bonuses is unconstitutional, and won't support it.
THAT was unexpected.
I guess the constitution still works a little bit.
Quote from: guido911 on March 20, 2009, 07:36:32 PM
Sorry for the legalize. When I read citations to wikipedia to explain complicated legal principles, I feel it necessary to throw out some real law for people to read and digest so a more sound argument can be advanced.
Wikipedia had good references to pertinent cases which can easily be looked up on Cornell's law site, that you try to shoehorn tax code revisions into completely unrelated law is only indicative of your ideological purpose.
The Supreme Court has held on numerous occasions that taxes are not a punitive measure, despite how you or I may feel about them when we pay them. In fact, a bill that would increase the tax rate on bonuses would fall so squarely within the tests that the Supreme Court has laid out for its entire history it's unlikely certorai would even be granted unless some appellate court chose to disregard 200 years of tax law precedent (and 90 years specific to income tax)
I don't have a citation handy, but one of the cases was directly on point, the only difference being the challenge was to the wisconson state legislature's change in the tax code as opposed to the federal congress.
Quote from: nathanm on March 23, 2009, 07:32:02 PM
Wikipedia had good references to pertinent cases which can easily be looked up on Cornell's law site, that you try to shoehorn tax code revisions into completely unrelated law is only indicative of your ideological purpose.
The Supreme Court has held on numerous occasions that taxes are not a punitive measure, despite how you or I may feel about them when we pay them. In fact, a bill that would increase the tax rate on bonuses would fall so squarely within the tests that the Supreme Court has laid out for its entire history it's unlikely certorai would even be granted unless some appellate court chose to disregard 200 years of tax law precedent (and 90 years specific to income tax)
I don't have a citation handy, but one of the cases was directly on point, the only difference being the challenge was to the wisconson state legislature's change in the tax code as opposed to the federal congress.
Well, President Obama taught as a constitutional scholar, and he feels it's not constitutional, so I think we'll just defer to his wise guidance.
We certainly woulden't want to imply that he is just shooting from the hip. ;D
Gee, and all this time I thought I was "spooning" with a wealth redistributing socialist who pals around with terrorists..... I feel so dirty. /sarcasm.
Looks like they are going to "rework" the budget.
"Sen. Bill Nelson, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, said the Obama budget will have to be revised in light of the latest Congressional Budget Office projections."
That's good.
&
Bejing and the Kremlin are both proposing a new currency, independent of the American dollar. Because Bernanke is printing and dumping Trillions of dollars on the international market. Why? No one knows, it just drops the value of our currency and destroys international faith in the dollar.
From Yesterday's issue of Canada's The Financial Post:
The circus-like U. S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?
I really think that President Obama and Axelrod are doing the best they can, but they have made so many promises against the principals of capitalism that they are struggling to find a way to turn the economy around using a different set of principals. If they were to loose the chains of government and let private industry surge they would be criticized, but that's what pulls us out of recessions every single time. They will have to do it eventually. Government has no power to sustain the people. I guess we just wait now.
Cleaning up the toxic assets was a very good move. We should have done that in week one. Would have saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. I remember during the election that someone else proposed doing that, but I don't remember who that could have been.
Is the end of America?
No. Not even close. If the cards play out right the United States emerges as a more powerful nation than before. Recall that power is proportional to that held by other nations. So long as we weaken less than other nations, we come out stronger. Particularly if we position ourselves to benefit from this in some way.
What it will end is U.S. hegemony in world affairs. For 20 years the US financial markets rules supreme, the US investment portfolio was the way to go, world politics was run by the US whenever and wherever we saw fit, and of course militarily no other 3 powers in the world can compete with the United States. I expect to see the US challenged in the long term on at least several of those fronts. The world is far, far more wealthy now than in 1990 - but no one really cares about that at the moment.
So... socialism is okay if we socialize risk and allow Wall Street to redistribute wealth....... got it.
Quote from: nathanm on March 23, 2009, 07:32:02 PM
Wikipedia had good references to pertinent cases which can easily be looked up on Cornell's law site, that you try to shoehorn tax code revisions into completely unrelated law is only indicative of your ideological purpose.
The Supreme Court has held on numerous occasions that taxes are not a punitive measure, despite how you or I may feel about them when we pay them. In fact, a bill that would increase the tax rate on bonuses would fall so squarely within the tests that the Supreme Court has laid out for its entire history it's unlikely certorai would even be granted unless some appellate court chose to disregard 200 years of tax law precedent (and 90 years specific to income tax)
I don't have a citation handy, but one of the cases was directly on point, the only difference being the challenge was to the wisconson state legislature's change in the tax code as opposed to the federal congress.
First, I was not hammering you on your Wiki source, only that the law is far more complex than what it provides. In fact, you are correct to the extent that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that taxes are generally not considered punishment or punitive. Indeed, in
Department of Revenue of Montana v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U.S. 767, 779-780, 114 S.Ct. 1937, 1946, 128 L.Ed.2d 767 (1994), the Court explained that "fines, penalties, and forfeitures are readily characterized as sanctions, taxes are typically different because they are usually motivated by revenue-raising, rather than punitive, purposes." See also,
U.S. v. Brennick, 908 F.Supp. 1004, 1009 (D.Mass.1995).
However, in
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U.S. 20, 38, 42 S.Ct. 449, 451, 66 L.Ed. 817 (1922), the U.S. Supreme Court has also stated:
The difference between a tax and a penalty is sometimes difficult to define, and yet the consequences of the distinction in the required method of their collection often are important....Taxes are occasionally imposed in the discretion of the Legislature on proper subjects with the primary motive of obtaining revenue from them and with the incidental motive of discouraging them by making their continuance onerous. They do not lose their character as taxes because of the incidental motive.
But there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty, with the characteristics of regulation and punishment.
[
Emphasis added].
The underscored portion of the
Bailey opinion is exactly the point I was making in my previous post. The proposed 90% tax has nothing to do with generating revenue, which you should concede is true. This is about seizure of property (money) from a few, specific individuals that the Obama administration and certain members of Congress have called greedy and the cause of the economic crisis.
This is all apparently moot now given Obama's recent statements as to the constitutionality of the tax and the Senate effectively burying it.
Quote from: guido911 on March 24, 2009, 11:45:00 AM
The underscored portion of the Bailey opinion is exactly the point I was making in my previous post. The proposed 90% tax has nothing to do with generating revenue, which you should concede is true. This is about seizure of property (money) from a few, specific individuals that the Obama administration and certain members of Congress have called greedy and the cause of the economic crisis.
Your point may be true, but given the revenue raising aspect, the court wouldn't get that far in its analysis. If you're still interested in beating this (apparently) dead horse, I can go back and cite some cases.
FWIW, I do appreciate a rational, factual discussion. ;D
Quote from: nathanm on March 24, 2009, 11:58:36 AM
Your point may be true, but given the revenue raising aspect, the court wouldn't get that far in its analysis. If you're still interested in beating this (apparently) dead horse, I can go back and cite some cases.
FWIW, I do appreciate a rational, factual discussion. ;D
Nah. Horse beaten to oblivion.
Ok, back on topic. . .
AIG has now changed their name to AIU so that problem is solved.
JP Morgan Chase who just received $25 billion in TARP funds. Plans to buy two luxury corporate jets worth $138 million and also build "the premier corporate aircraft hangar on the eastern seaboard" to house them. The new hangar will apparently be built with reclaimed wood, quarry tile and even include a "vegetated roof garden." The Gulfstream 650's are supposed to be the "fastest," "widest" and "most comfortable" private jet ever.
I'm sure there will be stringent government oversight during the entire aircraft construction and delivery procedure to make sure that our money doesn't go to waste. ;D
(http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2008/03/gulfstream650-2.jpg)
sweet!
Oops. Fannie May is paying $1 million dollar bonuses to their four top execs now too. Sorry AIG, it sucks to be first.
Barney, I can't hear you, speak up.
For a different perspective, this is an interesting letter:
QuoteIt is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:
I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.
After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.
I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.
Letter continues here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I'm not saying I agree with this guy, but I did not know that some of these guys were only being paid $1. And, having gone throw a company's downfall, I know that you need a pretty hefty bonus to keep good employees on a sinking ship. One million is a little high, though.
These people are just an easy target for outrage that has been building for a while.
Quote from: pmcalk on March 26, 2009, 09:07:39 AM
For a different perspective, this is an interesting letter:
Letter continues here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I'm not saying I agree with this guy, but I did not know that some of these guys were only being paid $1. And, having gone throw a company's downfall, I know that you need a pretty hefty bonus to keep good employees on a sinking ship. One million is a little high, though.
These people are just an easy target for outrage that has been building for a while.
+1
They have been reporting the fact that most of the top end AIG execs withdrew their salary relying on their bonus structure. Many regularly borrow money during the year knowing that they have the security to pay it back at bonus time.
Many of them have homes and lifestyles that they cannot afford without that million dollar bonus.
I'm not defending their performance or decision making process in any way, but why would you blame them for quitting and moving to another company that is willing to compensate them closer to the rate that they have established for themselves.
This shouldn't be a shock to anyone. Remove the retention bonus and you remove the retention. AIG has very little possibility for survival now, and will end up being sliced up sold off, and all of the funds used to prop them up will now be for nothing.
Barney Fudd was told this would happen, and his response was to just "Fire Them." Bless his heart, Barney has never run a business, but now he's learning. I am confident that he will have an opportunity to grow through this process and learn more about the consequences of his words and actions. We have a huge investment in Barney to the tune of trillions of dollars now. We need to make sure that his skills continue to grow so that he can better manage all of the financial institutions that he will preside over.
Quote from: pmcalk on March 26, 2009, 09:07:39 AM
For a different perspective, this is an interesting letter:
Letter continues here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I'm not saying I agree with this guy, but I did not know that some of these guys were only being paid $1. And, having gone throw a company's downfall, I know that you need a pretty hefty bonus to keep good employees on a sinking ship. One million is a little high, though.
These people are just an easy target for outrage that has been building for a while.
I feel bad for them, because they're being unfairly scapegoated. The "bonus," such as it is, is the entirety of their salary. It's not -- as most of us might think -- extra pay for good performance. The problem is that the industry in general and the AIG CEO in specific failed to make that crucial distinction to congress and to anyone else that was listening. Instead it sounds like they're being rewarded for tanking the economy.
IMO, the reason these bonuses were such a flashpoint is that to date there hasn't been any real accountability. Aside from Madoff -- whose scheme was unrelated to the whole credit crisis -- no charges have been brought, and there don't seem to be any investigations into why this happened. There were huge systemic breakdowns and no one has paid for that negligence/maliciousness yet.
This is one of the nagging problems of Obama's "looking forward" approach to governance. We may be done with the past, but the past seems to definitely not be done with us.
Also, if your company is in such dire straits that it has to be bailed out TWICE by the federal government, wouldn't you try to find a way to renegotiate your "bonus" structure into a real salary? I understand that deferred compensation is the way a lot of that stuff runs, but seriously, isn't it obvious that most if not all bets are off at this point?
Quote from: Gaspar on March 24, 2009, 04:54:53 PM
Oops. Fannie May is paying $1 million dollar bonuses to their four top execs now too. Sorry AIG, it sucks to be first.
Barney, I can't hear you, speak up.
Your mancrush on Barney Frank is crossing into Dick Army territory.... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-barney-frank/is-there-an-antidote-to-t_b_176538.html
Quote from: we vs us on March 26, 2009, 11:39:34 AM
I feel bad for them, because they're being unfairly scapegoated. The "bonus," such as it is, is the entirety of their salary. It's not -- as most of us might think -- extra pay for good performance. The problem is that the industry in general and the AIG CEO in specific failed to make that crucial distinction to congress and to anyone else that was listening. Instead it sounds like they're being rewarded for tanking the economy.
IMO, the reason these bonuses were such a flashpoint is that to date there hasn't been any real accountability. Aside from Madoff -- whose scheme was unrelated to the whole credit crisis -- no charges have been brought, and there don't seem to be any investigations into why this happened. There were huge systemic breakdowns and no one has paid for that negligence/maliciousness yet.
This is one of the nagging problems of Obama's "looking forward" approach to governance. We may be done with the past, but the past seems to definitely not be done with us.
+2 One now and one later. ;)
Quote from: USRufnex on March 26, 2009, 12:28:13 PM
Your mancrush on Barney Frank is crossing into Dick Army territory.... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-barney-frank/is-there-an-antidote-to-t_b_176538.html
I apologize for saying that Barney never ran a business before. I forgot that one of his boyfriends did have a home business that he ran out of his DC apartment a while back, and I guess that counts.
If I recall correctly that business was engaged in the exact same thing Barney is doing to us.
My apologies.
AIG threatened by over-the-top moronic protesters:
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/AIG-Threats-We-will-get-your-children.html
Quote from: Gaspar on March 26, 2009, 12:32:36 PM
I apologize for saying that Barney never ran a business before. I forgot that one of his boyfriends did have a home business that he ran out of his DC apartment a while back, and I guess that counts.
If I recall correctly that business was engaged in the exact same thing Barney is doing to us.
My apologies.
There you go again. typical Sean Hannity talking points that conveniently ignore McCains economic guru Phil Gramm to focus on a house minority dem... indirect political bs from you gas... but brilliant use of the gay card... always plays really well with the "family values" base... ::)
Quote from: Gaspar on March 26, 2009, 12:32:36 PM
I apologize for saying that Barney never ran a business before. I forgot that one of his boyfriends did have a home business that he ran out of his DC apartment a while back, and I guess that counts.
If I recall correctly that business was engaged in the exact same thing Barney is doing to us.
My apologies.
You are correct. Frank's then-boyfriend ran a prostitution ring out of his residence. Frank denied knowing that was going on (yeah, whatever). Source: that uber-Conservative CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/11/60minutes/main4663945_page4.shtml
Quote from: Gaspar on March 24, 2009, 04:54:53 PM
Oops. Fannie May is paying $1 million dollar bonuses to their four top execs now too. Sorry AIG, it sucks to be first.
Barney, I can't hear you, speak up.
Ole Rhambo received over 300K from his stint at Freddie:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story
I demand he give that money back!
Quote from: USRufnex on March 26, 2009, 02:09:55 PM
There you go again. typical Sean Hannity talking points that conveniently ignore McCains economic guru Phil Gramm to focus on a house minority dem... indirect political bs from you gas... but brilliant use of the gay card... always plays really well with the "family values" base... ::)
As I recall about 8" up the page, you were the one that implied I had a "Mancrush" on Barney. I completely forgot he was gay until you brought it up. That's what reminded me of the scandal where they discovered his friend was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's DC apartment.
I simply implied that may have given him some important business experience. I didn't even mention the prostitution part. Just didn't think it was important. After all, business is business.
But I see your point, the family values crowd may have a problem with him for his personal activities, but that's their problem. I was more focused on making a statement about his business experience.
Don't be jealous, you're still my #1. ;)
"The rose goes in the front, big guy..." :P
Quote from: Gaspar on March 26, 2009, 02:43:52 PM
I completely forgot he was gay until you brought it up.
Yeah right.....
disingenuous--1. Not straightforward or candid - insincere or calculating. 2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naif... roll tape... http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=11640.15 "Herb Moses. Remember the name. He was an assistant director at Fannie Mae from 1991 to 98. He was also Barneys boyfriend."
Quote from: USRufnex on March 26, 2009, 09:24:19 PM
Yeah right..... disingenuous--1. Not straightforward or candid - insincere or calculating. 2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naif... roll tape... http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=11640.15 "Herb Moses. Remember the name. He was an assistant director at Fannie Mae from 1991 to 98. He was also Barneys boyfriend."
Oh yeah, I forgot about Herb too. You're right that was a real "sweat-heart" deal. Why do you keep trying to turn this discussion to Barney's sexual preference? Why does that matter so much? I don't really care what he sleeps with, my focus in mentioning him was his dismal business experience.
Yippee he's gay. So what!
Once again, I find your arguments in scapegoating Barney Frank based on a gay relationship from 10 years ago to be disingenuous... kinda along the same lines of John Kerry expressing concern for Dick Cheney's daughter during the 2004 VP debate... or, to borrow a phrase from Monty Python....
Is, uh,... Is your wife a goer, eh? Know whatahmean, know whatahmean, nudge nudge, know whatahmean, say no more?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-barney-frank/is-there-an-antidote-to-t_b_176538.html
According to the Republicans' misty memories of the period before 2007, I allegedly singlehandedly blocked their determined efforts to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and my supposed intransigence literally caused the worldwide financial crisis.
Fortunately, we have tools to aid memory -- pencil and paper, word processing, transcripts, newspapers, and the Congressional record. And as described in the most reputable published sources, in 2005 I in fact worked together with my Republican colleague Michael Oxley, then Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, to write a bill to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We passed the bill out of committee with an overwhelming majority -- every Democrat voted in favor of the legislation. However, on the House floor the Republican leadership added a poison pill amendment, which would have prevented non-profit institutions with religious affiliations from receiving funds. I voted against the legislation in protest, though I continued to work with Mr. Oxley to encourage the Senate to pass a good bill. But these efforts were defeated because President Bush blocked further consideration of the legislation. In the words of Mr. Oxley, no flaming liberal, the Bush administration gave his efforts 'the one-finger salute.'
The Republicans can claim some supposed successes despite my awesome power. In 1999 they passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which overturned a Depression-era law preventing commercial banks from acting like investment banks. In 2000, they passed another bill which loosened regulation of derivative markets. I voted against these bills -- but to no avail.
Under Republican President George W. Bush, many federal agencies turned a blind eye to activities which would later precipitate the global financial meltdown. The Securities and Exchange Commission decided to allow the nation's largest financial institutions to "self-regulate;" the Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan declined to use its power to regulate subprime mortgages; the Comptroller of the Currency decided to preempt state consumer laws on subprime mortgages.
Meanwhile, President Bush himself demanded that Fannie and Freddie increase the percentage of subprime loans they purchased, supposedly because of his belief in an "ownership society." Incidentally, increased lending to subprime borrowers would also fuel astronomical profits by the financial services industry. I publicly opposed giving mortgages to unqualified borrowers because I believed that some families are better off renting.
Yet somehow none of this was recorded in the Republican collective memory.
Priceless? An elitist snear....disgusting.
Geithner Gets a Taste of the Peasants' Anger
By Ruth Conniff, March 27, 2009
http://www.progressive.org/mag/rc032709.html
It was priceless watching Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's stunned expression as he listened to questions from Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, about his ties to Goldman Sachs.
Waters wanted to get at the "linkages and the connections among a small group of Wall Street types who are making decisions," she explained. To that end, she asked Geithner, was it possible that Goldman Sachs could have been chosen to help run the new Public Private Investment Program?
Yes, he allowed, it was possible.
And did Goldman Sachs receive money from failed insurance giant AIG?
Yes.
And did Goldman Sachs get a piece of the government's TARP program?
Yes.
And did former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson spend a lot of his career at Goldman Sachs?
Yes.
"And your CEO that you hired to work for you is from Goldman Sachs also?"
Geithner looked nonplussed. "My CEO?"
"Well, whomever—whoever works for you," Waters said impatiently. "I don't want to get the nuances to the point where we misunderstand each other. . . . Your chief of staff."
Yes, Geithner conceded (after Waters cut him off a couple of times, demanding that he answer more succinctly), his chief of staff used to work for Goldman Sachs.
Aha. "We believe," Waters said, "that Goldman Sachs will once again be one of those who will be the beneficiaries" of the government's latest bailout plan.
Now the "we" Waters referred to may include people who are receiving their information on the bank bailout via tinfoil antennas. The obsessive focus on Goldman Sachs does ring a lot of conspiracy theory bells.
But the Congresswoman from California is channeling the skepticism of a whole lot of Americans when she suggests that something about the government's latest bailout plan doesn't smell right.
Why are we funneling hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayers' money to a bunch of hedge fund managers to buy "toxic" assets from banks for more than they are worth?
And for that matter, why is Geithner, the guy who was in charge of regulating Citigroup before and during that firm's collapse while he was chair of the New York Fed, the most qualified person to re-regulate the banks?
And why do he and his chief of staff and other Obama advisers charged with cleaning up Wall Street come from the ranks of big Wall Street firms whose attitudes toward things like who should lose money when risky deals go bust significantly different from your average citizen's?
Even now, Citigroup doesn't seem to get it that there's anything wrong with using bailout money to pay dividends to shareholders. As John Kay reports in the Financial Times, "Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive, poses the issue in stark terms. When the US government announced further support, he was reported as telling analysts: 'We completely remain in day-to-day charge of the company. We are going to run Citi for shareholders.' But if I were a U.S. taxpayer, I would ask why I had provided $45 billion to a business that was going to be run for shareholders, especially when the current value of outside equity is barely 10 per cent of my own contribution."
As economist Dean Baker says, "Mr. Geithner wants to use taxpayer dollars to keep bankrupt banks in business. In effect, he wants to tax teachers, fire fighters, and Joe the Plumber to protect the wealth of the banks' shareholders and to pay high salaries to their top executives."
The teachers, fire fighters, and plumbers, and their representatives in Congress, have a few questions for Mr. Geithner about that. And, like it or not, he has to answer them.
Two worlds are colliding. Nothing less than Americans' worshipful attitude toward the wealthy is getting badly shaken up. You can see it in the House Banking Committee hearings, and on the front lawns of AIG executives' mansions, where regular citizens, some facing foreclosure on their own homes, have showed up to give the once-untouchable aristocracy a bit of a scare.
It must be head-spinning for Geithner, running back and forth between the peasants with pitchforks, represented by Waters and other populists in Congress, and the Wall Street bankers who see nothing wrong with million-dollar bonuses for running their companies into the ground.
Too bad Geithner's conversations with the bankers are not on youtube. To most of us, their ideas sound a hell of lot loopier than Maxine Waters's preoccupation with Goldman Sachs.
Even Financial Times columnist Martin Frost, who views the threat to publicize the names of AIG financial products executives who received bonuses as "an invitation to a lynching," writes that "the crisis has broken the American social contract: people were free to succeed and to fail, unassisted. Now, in the name of systemic risk, bailouts have poured staggering sums into the failed institutions that brought the economy down."
Back during the boom years of the 1990s we had another upheaval in the "social contract" when President Bill Clinton ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The argument went something like this: If you don't work hard and play by the rules, taxpayers shouldn't give you money. No handouts for losers.
Tim Geithner has made welfare queens out of former masters of the universe.
One silver lining in the current crisis would be if rich white men with Wall Street connections had to endure the kind of public scorn that poor, single mothers on welfare suffered during the last Democratic Administration.
What you haven't heard? Gold Man Sacks is the new Haliburton :o
Quote from: Conan71 on March 31, 2009, 02:12:31 PM
What you haven't heard? Gold Man Sacks is the new Haliburton :o
What? I thought it was the new Enron?
Is Enron back in favor now?
What about Exxon?
I don't think any Large Cap is safe.
Maxine Waters is the biggest moron in the Congress (since McKinney left). First, here is the video of the exchange the biggest moron in this forum referenced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFvnL3npQgY
Geithner was not stunned by the question. If anything, he was stunned by the stupidty and the near incoherence of a congressperson desperately trying to look smarter than she really is. Remember, Maxine Waters is the one that thought that crack cocaine was created by the CIA to attack minorities.
The 2008 AIG bonus pool just keeps getting larger and larger.
In a response to detailed questions from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the company has offered a third assessment of exactly how much it paid out in bonuses last year.
And the new number, offered in a document submitted to Cummings on May 1, is the highest figure the company has disclosed to date.
AIG now says it paid out more than $454 million in bonuses to its employees for work performed in 2008.
Wow! $3,400,000,000,000 new budget, or $11,300 for each American.
But the news only reported the President saying "We've saved the American tax payer over $17 billion dollars."
Great! That takes $56.00 off of our running tab. Lets see, I think we are up to about $38,000 each, take away the $56 bucks and now we only owe $37,944 each.
Awesome!
Quote from: Gaspar on May 07, 2009, 12:36:28 PM
Wow! $3,400,000,000,000 new budget, or $11,300 for each American.
But the news only reported the President saying "We've saved the American tax payer over $17 billion dollars."
Great! That takes $56.00 off of our running tab. Lets see, I think we are up to about $38,000 each, take away the $56 bucks and now we only owe $37,944 each.
Awesome!
Now now gassy, don't be a hater. This is change we can believe in.