Create a problem and then point fingers!!
March 18, 2009
Washington to blame for AIG bonus scandal?
Posted: 01:14 PM ET
FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:
As outrage over AIG bonuses reaches a fever pitch, many are now wondering why our leaders in Washington didn’t do more to prevent the situation in the first place. The Obama administration says that it didn’t know until a couple of weeks ago that AIG executives were set to receive $165 million in bonuses.
Cafferty: Why didn’t our leaders in D.C. do more to prevent this situation?
They say that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner found out last Tuesday; and the president learned of all this on Thursday, just a day before the controversial retention payments went through. But Geithner was running the New York Federal Reserve Bank last fall when AIG got a high-interest loan of 85 billion dollars to help prevent collapse — along with its first installment of federal bailout money.
And none of these folks must watch CNN because in late January, Mary Snow did a story on this very program about the insurance giant paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to its financial products unit.
And then there’s Congress… When some lawmakers tried to prevent bonuses in the stimulus bill last month they actually made an exception for pre-existing contracts. Democrat Chris Dodd — who proposed the executive compensation provision — insists that he did not include that exemption clause. He says he doesn’t know how it got there; as do several other Democratic sources.
Dodd and then candidate-Barack Obama were the top recipients of AIG political contributions in 2008 — each getting more than $100,000.
And there’s more… The Senate had passed a bipartisan amendment that would have taxed bonuses on any company getting federal bailout money if the company didn’t pay back the bonus money to the government; but that was stripped from the stimulus bill during closed-door meetings. This is bordering on insanity.
Here’s my question to you: How much is Washington to blame for the AIG bonus scandal?
Tune in to the Situation Room at 4pm to see if Jack reads your answer on air.
And, we love to know where you’re writing from, so please include your city and state with your comment.
Link: Pointing fingers!! ;^)
Replies to: Create a problem and then point fingers!!
Obama and pals knew
there's no way they didn't know where this money was going.
The thing is, what is AIG going to do if all these people leave for not being paid? That's allot of labor force to replace, and with people who then have to learn on the job. And at this time, could they survive it?
The only question in my mind is, "do you save AIG or let them go under?" I don't know the answer to that. But if the answer is to save it, then I'm not sure if I have a complaint about this move.
I don't know, I'm just trying to throw some logic out, but correct me if my logic is flawed.
In other words
the American citizens are like the Chinese and US debt. We can't afford to let AIG fall or we fall. Mutual assured destruction.
Here's what I think.
If those guys (the educated, yet unethical morons who drove this train to the wreck) leave, there are plenty of well-educated, capable people behind them who just haven't paid their dues and kissed enough ass and ignored their families enough to qualify for the Swingin' Dicks Club and the fancy "compensation packages" that come with club membership. Offer these guys the moon if AIG is self-sufficient in X years, and a guaranteed government pension if after X years (a substantially shorter time) AIG has not recovered.
Your logic is right and they should have let it fail. Instead, we've overpaid, even for 100% of it.
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"he doesn't know how it got in there" - as suspected, nobody read the damn thing
or he is lying, which is worse?
How could they? It was over a thousand pages, and Pelosi had to make a jet to Rome.
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