Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Seems to me that as galling as it is that Chris Dodd and Tim Geithner will get fingers shaken at them but otherwise get a pass. . . .
And as galling as it is that it is now clear that President Obama, or at least his top advisors, knew this was going to happen some time ago. . . .
And as galling as it is that all those executives who ran AIG into the ground will be rewarded with millions and millions of dollars for doing that. . . .
There is a larger issue at stake here that should strike fear into the heart of every American patriot.
That issue is that our Congress is presuming to target a specific group for punative taxes, and given the great groundswell of anger out there, probably most taxpayers won't care. But such a move by our government will put all of us at risk. Let a precedent be set for that without challenge and none of us will be safe. A increasingly power drunk leadership from the head down might just exercise additional disciplines as they see fit. And that puts us on a slippery slope that every principle in our Constitution was intended to avoid and could leave us all unprotected and vulnerable.
They can't do this. And we can't allow it.
What's with all the drama? You guys are cracking me up being all up in arms about this.
It's not like they are doing this to employees of a company that is in the black, following the rules, and not receiving enormous tax payer bailouts. These people are lucky to have jobs!
Same question to you: How exactly is this taxing profits? The company was LOSING money like crazy and needed tax payer money to avoid going under. Where is the "profit" in that?
the new ceo hired by the government, the same government that intial approved these same bonus payments said they were retention payments which means it was for the people they wanted to keep to fix this mess......did it ever dawn on you all that these may be the folks that stoped it from completly imploding and from it being worse than it was and were going to fix it......if i were them i would give it back and resign....fix it yourself.....
No, it didn't dawn on me. I don't see why it should either.
You see, I work for a private investment firm and if we don't turn a profit, we don't get bonuses.
Crazy concept, I know.
the new ceo hired by the government, the same government that intial approved these same bonus payments said they were retention payments which means it was for the people they wanted to keep to fix this mess......did it ever dawn on you all that these may be the folks that stoped it from completly imploding and from it being worse than it was and were going to fix it......if i were them i would give it back and resign....fix it yourself.....
No, it didn't dawn on me. I don't see why it should either.
You see, I work for a private investment firm and if we don't turn a profit, we don't get bonuses.
Crazy concept, I know.
If there are any guilty parties here thay are GONE. You are wanting to punish individuals for what OTHER individuals have done ( possible assisted by more people we want to even know about).
No, it didn't dawn on me. I don't see why it should either.
You see, I work for a private investment firm and if we don't turn a profit, we don't get bonuses.
Crazy concept, I know.
If there are any guilty parties here thay are GONE. You are wanting to punish individuals for what OTHER individuals have done ( possible assisted by more people we want to even know about).
Guilty or not, my point is that when a company is losing money to the point of collapse, handing out bonuses to anybody doesn't make any sense. And I have a big problem with that when those bonuses are paid out with tax payer dollars. I know my company doesn't operate that way.
This troubles me.
This inappropriate use of the tax codes to punish individuals, just because we don't like that they have a contract, actually troubles me more than those creeps getting bonuses for screwing up the economy.
If there are any guilty parties here thay are GONE. You are wanting to punish individuals for what OTHER individuals have done ( possible assisted by more people we want to even know about).
Guilty or not, my point is that when a company is losing money to the point of collapse, handing out bonuses to anybody doesn't make any sense. And I have a big problem with that when those bonuses are paid out with tax payer dollars. I know my company doesn't operate that way.
The one thing that doesn't make sense here is a company that is "too big to fail". Since they decided it was, why are they screwing the ones who were hired to keep it afloat ?
This troubles me.
This inappropriate use of the tax codes to punish individuals, just because we don't like that they have a contract, actually troubles me more than those creeps getting bonuses for screwing up the economy.
I feel the same. This sets a dangerous precedent for future abuses of power by the government.
This troubles me.
This inappropriate use of the tax codes to punish individuals, just because we don't like that they have a contract, actually troubles me more than those creeps getting bonuses for screwing up the economy.
A truly sane society would hang these greedy bastards and move on.
Of course, our society's zietgiest has been insane for decades.
Consider that if these clowns had been selling a pound of hemp, we could have taken their homes, their cars, all their money and investments; consider we could have fined them and imprisoned them probably for longer periods than if they'd killed somebody.
Instead, the punishment for the people who have damned near destroyed the entire economy of the Western world, is that their bonuses will be taxed away, but they'll continue working in the same bank which the used to wreck us.
Now, please, somebody try to tell me that this society isn't nuts.
Try and make the case that our laws are fair, or that we live in meritocracy.
Go ahead...I dare yas'.
This troubles me.
This inappropriate use of the tax codes to punish individuals, just because we don't like that they have a contract, actually troubles me more than those creeps getting bonuses for screwing up the economy.
I feel the same. This sets a dangerous precedent for future abuses of power by the government.
Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve bank of NY at that time. None of THIS bonus money was handed out under those plans. THIS one is the Dem's baby all the way. They themselves even admit that. None of them is blaming Bush. I'll at least give them credit for that. This is theirs. They own it.that isn't correct giethner created a loan program of 40 bil prior to tarp i under bush then tarp i was passed under bush and they got 165 bill.....
And as Diuretic, I believe said, Congress, Treasury, and the administration are close to inciting riots. They have not been blindsided, they are well aware of what happened, what is happening, and what they are doing and have done:
washingtonpost.com
Inside AIG-FP, Feeling the Public's Wrath
By Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 19, 2009; C01
WILTON, Conn., March 18 -- A solitary flat-screen television hangs on the back wall of the trading floor inside the headquarters of AIG Financial Products here. Wednesday afternoon, the most-talked-about employees in America huddled around it to find out just how despised they have become.
They watched quietly as members of Congress referred to them as greedy and incompetent. They heard more than one demand that their names be released to the seething American public. They heard the chairman of American International Group, Edward M. Liddy, tell lawmakers that people, in e-mails sent to AIG-FP, suggested that the firm's leaders "should be executed with piano wire around their necks."
The evening before, the firm's chief operating officer, Gerry Pasciucco -- whom Liddy recruited in November from Morgan Stanley to shut down Financial Products before it could do more harm to the economy -- had gathered them together in the same spot.
Pasciucco urged them to keep their heads down, to act professionally and to continue working to extricate Financial Products from its more than $1.6 trillion in outstanding derivative contracts. He acknowledged that the past few days have been like being "inside the piñata."
In reply, they told him that they worried mostly about getting shot, despite the guards now patrolling the parking lot, the front door and some of their homes.
A sense of fear hung in the room -- the palpable, unsettling kind that flashes across people's eyes. But there was anger, too. No one would express it publicly, of course. Who wants to hear a wealthy financier complain? And yet, within those walls off Danbury Road lies a deep sense of betrayal -- first by their former colleagues, now by their elected leaders.
The handful of souls who championed the firm's now-infamous credit-default swaps are, by nearly every account, long since departed. Those left behind to clean up the mess, the majority of whom never lost a dime for AIG, now feel they have been sold out by their Congress and their president.
"They've chosen to throw us under the bus," said a Financial Products executive, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. "They have vilified us."
They say what is missing from this week's hysteria is perspective. The very handsome retention payments they received over the past week were set in motion early last year when the firm's former president, Joe Cassano, was on his way out the door. Financial Products was already running into trouble on its risky credit bets, and the year ahead looked grim. People were weighing offers from other firms, and AIG executives feared that too many departures could lead to disaster....
....The Financial Products staff met twice Wednesday inside one of the firm's large, glass-walled conference rooms to discuss the boss's letter. Numerous employees indicated that they would be willing to return the money, but most wanted nothing more to do with the firm. It was a preview of the possible exodus to come, one that concerns Liddy himself.
"My fear is that the damage is done," he told a congressional subcommittee. "That they will return [the money], but that they will return it with their resignations."
There is little doubt within Financial Products that he's right about that.
"Nobody is going to give it back and then stay," said one of the firm's employees. "If they give back the money, then they will walk. And they will walk into the arms of AIG's counterparties."
In the meantime, the e-mails from the public have continued to roll in, including death threats and calls to blow up the firm's Wilton headquarters. Reporters and photographers have camped out in front of the offices in London and Connecticut. They have staked out employees' houses. The New York Post identified one executive and labeled him "Jackpot Jimmy." Another employee had to relocate his family after a London tabloid printed his address. A protest group is organizing an "AIG magical mystery tour" Saturday, loading up a 47-seat bus to stop at Financial Products and at the homes of some of its executives.
This troubles me.
This inappropriate use of the tax codes to punish individuals, just because we don't like that they have a contract, actually troubles me more than those creeps getting bonuses for screwing up the economy.
I feel the same. This sets a dangerous precedent for future abuses of power by the government.
I agree with you Kevin, but IMO this is what should happen when you come to the gov't for money and make a deal with the devil.
Once again this has nicely dropped the entire story of the BILLIONS paid out over seas and converted a bunch of innocent executives in to convenient targets of a frenzied mob whipped into a killing frenzy by our own elected officials. You know, the ones that created the bill that allowed BILLIONS of tax payer money to be sent over seas.
I asked this on another thread. Anyone else think this whole AIG/bonus/loophole thing is a coincidence? Look what they've just done -- passed a bill to retro tax money. Anyone know exactly how that bill is worded?
March 3rd. C-Span. When did the Congress, Geithner, administration know?
<object width="365" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/flash/cspanPlayer.swf?pid=284395-1&clipStart=7537.81&clipStop=7785.89&autoplay=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.c-spanarchives.org/flash/cspanPlayer.swf?pid=284395-1&clipStart=7537.81&clipStop=7785.89&autoplay=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="365" height="340"></embed></object>
How could they know about the contracts that were signed after the new year?
Back in October, Cuomo, the New York Attorney General, got AIG chairman Ed Liddy to agree not to pay any money from the $600m compensation pool designated for the controversial Financial Products division.
Lawyers working for both AIG and the Treasury spent hours poring over the contracts between the company and employees with the FP arm to see if it could renege on its 2008 bonuses.
The eventual advice - given the contracts stated that 2008 bonuses had to be equal to the value of 2007 bonuses, which related to a much stronger financial performance and had already been paid - was no, and so the bonuses were paid, last Friday.
In other words, any of those involved in the situation between October and now - Cuomo, Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke - could revealed what was about to happen in an attempt to stop the payments from being made. None did.
And so now all Congressional leaders like Richard Shelby have left is a lot of hot air and the hope of taxing the bonuses so extremely that whoever received them - and we may never know unless Cuomo gets his way - will end up with very little indeed.
As an aside, it should be noted that the original version of the Senate's fiscal stimulus bill contained legislation - championed by Senator's Olympia Snowe and Ron Wyden - that would have clawed-back all bonuses over $100,000 paid by companies receiving federal funds, or levied a 35pc excise tax on the money.
But in the closed-doors rush to reduce the overall size of the stimulus package, that clause was eradicated. So Congress now has to reinvent the wheel and attempt to apply it historically.
