’)On Meet The Press, White House Council Of Economic Advisers Chairperson Christina Romer said that Sec. Tim Geithner is “urging” AIG on the bonus issue. We – the American people – own 80% of the company. We’re past the point of “urging”. We need to TELL those bastards what to do.
Apparently $160+ BILLION doesn’t buy as much influence as it used to.
Geithner and Summers are fast becoming the faces of corporatist enabling. Eventually this sticky mess is going to stick to their boss as well unless he and his team gets a fast, firm grip on it (and not just with some kabuki “urging” but rather with some serious ninja “action”).
AIG wrote, what, a $1/4, a $1/2 trillion in arguably fraudulent insurance policies? And many of the culprits at the rotten core of the thing are awarding themselves somewhere between $100 million to a $1/2 billion in bonuses depending on who’s crunching the numbers?
Geithner and Summers are no longer a problem that just the squeaky wheels on the left are complaining about, these numbers are big enough that they’re starting to seep into the pores of the general populace like red chili pepper mace.
Taxpayers are paying off bad bets made by unscrupulous bankers and investors who ran their companies into the ground only to get both their companies bailed out by taxpayers even while they are awarding themselves mega-bonuses.
That the crooks are double dipping by paying themselves ultra sweet golden parachutes even after destroying their companies, wiping out trillions in wealth, and pushing America and the world into the worst recession since the Great Depression is incendiary.
Instead of “urging” these looters and fraudsters not to steal millions/billions/trillions more in taxpayer dollars, perhaps a majority of them need to be treated the way any robber of the corner drugstore would be treated: go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars.
This is beyond ‘through the looking glass’ kind of crazy at this point.
Theses banksters are acting like there’s still a Republican in office.
I’m starting to think they know something I don’t.
I pretty much agree. Obama needs to take the populist anger over stuff like the AIG bonuses and nationalize the toxic banks immediately. The longer he waits to do the inevitable, the worse it will be.
How our government could give away that much of our money without stipulting conditions that preclude this kind of fraudulent spending of our money is amazing.
If we own 80% of this company, why don’t we have gov’t muscle in there cracking some heads?
You guys act so surprised when it’s clear this administration is bought and paid for.
From unions to foreign countries and now AIG (a big contributor) the Obama administration is in the tank.
Hope and Change BABY! Hope and Change!!
We don’t have the muscle because the president insists on deferring somewhat to tools like Joaquin, to be quite honest. And it’s going to screw us, just like it did in Japan’s lost decade and the early great depression.
The bonuses are the least of the problem:
“The latest admission from the (defunct yet living) company is that well over $100 billion in taxpayer monies has gone to counter-parties at 100 cents on the dollar
Sorry. The whole article is here:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/03/aig-105-billion-to-counterparties/
Parthenon, you caught me! I do have the president’s ear.
If you’d like, I can set up a conference call with you, Obama, and I, then you can give him a piece of your mind.
eh eh!
Yes, its totally Barack Obama’s fault that the Bush administration gave AIG a no strings attached bailout.
Barack Obama rides the populist rage to the White House. Now in a quandary over how to play his cards.
Like Marcia Brady in a pickle because she has committed to two dates to the same prom.
Well, Dennis, you really told us. Wow. Burn.
Barack Obama rides the populist rage to the White House. Now in a quandary over how to play his cards.
Like Marcia Brady in a pickle because she has committed to two dates to the same prom.
A CLASSIC BY DENNIS!!!!!!!!!
I’m not easily impressed………………BUT I’M IMPRESSED!!
All the outrage over AIG’s bailout money going to (gasp!) counterparties!1! is a bit overdramatic, don’t you think?
I mean, what do you think an insurance company’s operating expenses are? Of course they’re paying out money to counterparties. That’s what insurance companies do.
Should the counterparties be taking something less than the contracted amount? Well, that’s something to debate. But the idea that an insurance company is doing something wrong by redeeming the insurance contracts it wrote is just dumb.
QIB-
The counterparties for the most part are the other financial institutions, corporations and municipalities that were on the other end of the credit default swaps AIG had outstanding, not as much the insurance contracts I believe.
on the other end of the credit default swaps AIG had outstanding, not as much the insurance contracts
CDSs are insurance contracts. For a fee, AIG assumes the risk of default on a loan agreement. If you want to define CDSs as something separate from insurance, fine. But they were an ordinary part of AIGs ongoing business. That the company uses bailout money to pay out their obligations shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Quaker says: “Of course they’re [AIG] paying out money to counterparties.”
To be clear “they’re [AIG]” not paying it. American taxpayers are.
Quaker: “Should the counterparties be taking something less than the contracted amount?”
That’s the funny thing in capitalism, if you make bad bets, like insuring yourself with a fraudulent insurance company, then you take your lumps when it fails. No payouts to you, sir.
But Republicans Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush force fed America right wing corporatism, the through the looking glass opposite of socialism. Taxpayers still pay (just like socialism) but it goes to millionaire and billionaire banksters instead of the recently out of work single mom next door trying to pay her rent and feed her kids.
Quacks like Quaker aren’t interested in a “debate,” they’re in the business of defending highway robbery.
Quaker: “For a fee, AIG assumes the risk of default on a loan agreement.”
FALSE. AIG didn’t have the assets to cover their bets (the ‘risks’). AIG wasn’t in the “insurance” business so much as it was in the fraudulent gambling business. AIG PRETENDED to cover the “risks” but never had the capital to cover it’s gambles.
In a “real” capitalist system, everyone that gambled with them would be out of luck (technically: S.O.L.). In the movies, a thug would show up at the AIG executives mansions and “explain” that covering your gamble is part of the game.
Quacker, it sounds like you’re trying to defend the fraudulent system the right wingers called the “free market.”
It was never a “free market.” “Freedom” implies that I would have the “freedom” from being held hostage by banksters like AIG (and Goldman Sachs) from they’re bad gambles. Instead, they’ve got a gun to the head of every American and are saying that if they don’t get trillions of dollars immediately then they’ll pull the trigger and the entire global financial system will collapse.
And Quacker, you are defending that theft.
Funny, right wingers go ballistic if a lefty defends someone who stole a loaf of bread to feed their children. We have more people in prison in America than any country on the planet because of right wing intolerance for such infractions.
But right wingers can defend banksters stealing trillions and even defend those same banksters who are threatening the financial well-being of every American in the country.
Right wingers have pretended that in the con they mislabel the “free market” that bad business people would be punished. That means that everyone at AIG would be financially wiped out and would have to compete with the unemployed mom next door for a loaf of bread.
Instead, the right wing gamed the system, and their buddies, the bad business people who robbed the country, are walking away with, literally, trillions of US taxpayer dollars.
And right wing Quacks, either because of predaciousness or cognitive dissonance, defend the con.
Holy crap, that is the worst web page i have ever seen.
Mr. Reference, you didn’t pay someone to do that to you, did you?
joaquin: I’m not easily impressed…………
Yes, you are.
Duros62: Holy crap, that is the worst web page i have ever seen.
This is off topic and not responding to any of News Reference’s points, but I gots to agree with Duros. Good Lord, but that does look like a sample of “Things not to do on your website”.
Holy crap, that is the worst web page i have ever seen.
My eyes! Ze goggles do nothing!
Michael O H: Ze goggles do nothing!
You’ve got the wrong goggles, then. I tried it with 3D Specs and it all makes sense, now!
I tried it with 3D Specs and it all makes sense, now!
Are you sure you weren’t wearing the sunglasses from that John Carpenter movie They Live?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live
Quacks like Quaker aren
Quacks like Quaker aren’t interested in a “debate,” they’re in the business of defending highway robbery.
You must be new here. We’ll overlook your rookie errors.
This time.
You know, every time joaquin or similar gets all “mocking” about “hope and change!” I keep wanting to ask them if their platform was supposed to be “everything’s fine!”
Those of you having problems with Mr. Reference’s website obviously aren’t viewing it on a 250″ plasma monitor, then the only problem is that the font is a little too big.. I never thought I’d see a website designed so poorly that the guy behind timecube.com would say, “Damn that’s a mess”.
every time joaquin or similar gets all “mocking” about “hope and change!” I keep wanting to ask them if their platform was supposed to be “everything’s fine!”
Stay the Course©!
I never thought I’d see a website designed so poorly that the guy behind timecube.com would say, “Damn that’s a mess”.