Check out the Politico.com there’s a story there that sums it all up, the fake, phony outrage.

http://www.politico.com, the headline piece is:  Why AIG Outrage Rings Hollow:

Obama and Grassley and Congress knew about this shit OVER A YEAR AGO! Think about that business grads & MBA fans, think about what is required in quarterly and annual reports required by the SEC or other regulatory bodies.

Yes, Obama does appear to have a smirk on his face and Summers is a better liar than Timothy. But nobody can outdo the sepia George Bush.

To Jason:  Did you know…
Barack Obama was the #2 recipiant of AIG contributions at 101K?
Go figure.

and to Louise…
Above is fact based, and your post you refer to no-one commenting on was for 1, too long, and 2, maybe copied somewhat from other op-eds that I’ve read throughout the day on the subject.
Stay original and short to the point won’t you.
We all have our opinions and are entitled to them.

Happy St. Patty’s Day everbody!

“Aiming” isn’t good enough. Obama should not have called out AIG yesterday until he was actually successful. You see, this is what is driving people livid. This is no longer a political campaign, this is reality, and it hurts, hurts, hurts.

I am starting to think that Obama can’t deliver on anything at all. But its his own fault. Are we really supposed to get EXCITED OVER MAYBEES? Barry, we’re bleeding here.

PERSONALLY I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER LIE, ANOTHER FALSE PROMISE, ANOTHER JOKE OR ANY MORE RHETORIC. JUST STAY OFF THE DAMN TV UNTIL YOU’VE GOT SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. WE CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE.

Stand and deliver or shut up and go away.

Too little, too late.

Considering where the unemployment rate is today i wouldn’t have expected obama to say that the paying of those bonuses was a good thing.  The previous time outrageous bonuses were paid they should have known then there could be more.  How could they their “professionals” not have known?  No doubt obama is pulling a “cramer” to manipulate, to quell the outrage!  As the situtation draws out, weeks into months, as new situations emerge and memories wan, the obama administration may simply admit that the law is the law, and a contract is a contract, binding.  Let’s hope i’m mistaken.

Too Late.  It is reported that 73 employees received at least a $1 million bonus of which 11 are no longer with AIG.  So much for the argument of retaining valuable staff.  Looks to me more like a case of “show me da money!”

Dodd burned the American people for a campaign contribution…

Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group (AIG: 0.9212, 0.1411, 18.09%) bonus recipients so the government could recoup some or all of the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.

The move represents somewhat of an about-face for the Senator.

While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009”—which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.

The amendment made it into the final version of the bill, and is law.

Separately, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org.

Dodd’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

One of AIG Financial Products’ largest offices is based in Connecticut.

Dodd Amendment Rules

Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation: Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009. 

For institutions that received assistance totaling less than $25 million, the bonus restriction applies to the highest compensated employee; $25 million to $250 million, applies to the top five employees; $250 million to $500 million, applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 10 employees; and more than $500 million applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 20 employees (or such higher number as the Secretary determines is in the public interest).

actually, Louise, I didn’t read your earlier post because of time constraints, and I still haven’t read it for the same reason.

I will stand by my criticism of Obama, however. While I don’t blame him for the freefall of the economy, his appointments to the positions of power basically put the weasels back in charge of the henhouse, and elevated Geithner-weasel. And I’ve seen no reason to have any faith that they’re acting in the best interest of the country.  They seem to be taking pretty good care of their buddies/colleagues at Goldman et al, however.

Yeah right.
Where have we heard this before?
It is insulting the way they think we can repeatedly buy this feigned outrage, transparent excuses and promises to “try” to do whatever they can. I can almost see the whisper of a smirk starting when Obama recites his lines. Already his economic head honcho picks are shify-eyed and wary of the blaze of the spotlight.  Before you know it they will have to select limited venues and hand-pick the audiences to curb public unrest and backlash.

psickmind fraud, artie, Sue Cook, Garth, SteveK9, Folktruther, [same-ol-same-ol],

I am amazed!

Yesterday I made a GLARING phoopa in my comment on this article. I got up this morning fully expecting a bunch of comments pointing out, and attacking me for my blunder. And what did I find? Nothing!

So I’m left wondering. Do none of you understand what’s happened? Are any of you even slightly informed on the facts? Or are you simply critters in a dog and pony show? Jumping at the crack of the whip. Following the orders from the “conservative” masters who blessed you with this messy, mess! Attack Obama, blame Obama, jump through the hoop, roll over, sit, heel, beg!

Exposed! Your great pretense at being outraged because you care about doing the right thing, care about healing and progress. A great pretense!

Perhaps you aren’t quite smart enough to understand. Your constantly blaiming Obama for the mess left by others, only threatens to bring those “others” back to power. A power they have no right too! A power they once had, improperly used and abused! So maybe that’s what you really want.

Maybe you actually like this horror! Maybe you want to return to leadership that will guarantee we will have more, and it will be worse!

Gives new meaning to the definition of informed. Certainly highlights the difference between being informed and being just opinionated.

Or maybe you just didn’t read it. No matter. Whether you are uninformed, or simply programmed Obama bashers who have not the wisdom or the ambition to make factual connections, you lack imagination. And an ability to attach any kind of originality or insight to your bashing. “misused words are often laughable but one weeps for misused talents”

As Obama took over $22 million in campaign contributions from the financial sector, is there any reason to believe that this is any more than posturing on his part?  I don’t think so.

Again and again our government has refused to rein in these abuses.  Not too long ago the NY Times reported that Geithner ‘won’ the argument to restrain executive pay.  The bonus payments went out on Friday.  Blocking this behavior is possible, but apparently Obama, Geithner, Summers are afraid to do so, but it is not clear to me why.

The time to determine what taxpayer money is or isn’t used for is BEFORE you give it out.  Previous bailouts were used for bonuses, to the the outrage of the population, and again money was given out to be so used.  By the Obama administration.

Understanding the AIG mess is actually pretty simple. People don’t know, because people for the most part don’t want to know. That’s why they hire politicians who scream foul, right after they commit a foul. And rely on CNBC to think for them. And allow preachers and other “in the name of God” types to make their decisions.

In AIG’s November, 2008 bailout, Treasury used some of the funds from the $700 billion TARP to buy $40 billion in AIG preferred stock. The latest $30 billion TARP exchanged a portion of common stock for a fresh portion of preferred stock. Which on March 4, 2009, was released as new PREFERRED SHARES making the government’s AIG stake some 77.9 per cent. In other words now we the taxpayers own a majority of preferred SHARES in AIG, and control almost 80 percent of the company.

OK, owning 80% of a company TRILLIONS in debt, losing BILLIONS every quarter, that hasn’t made a profit since who knows when isn’t exciting. On the other hand, if paying some 10% of the $700 billion TARP to rescue AIG’s $450 TRILLION Virtual derivatives market, can prevent the total financial collape of the WORLDS economy, it may prove to be a very worth while investment.

A preferred share is a security that provides an income similar to that of a bond. Those who gamble in the Stock Market like to take risk with investments expected to increase in value, in other words common stocks, but not with investments made to generate current income, in other words, fixed income securities, or preferred shares.

The gambler can increase derivatives by manipulating stock, (think - how did we get into this mess) but not with fixed securities. Ergo, the Stock Market is trying to convince us this is a bad idea. However, when all the bad assets have been cleaned up by restructuring at actual value, and all the bad overvalued Credit Default Swaps (CDS) have been recalled, paid off and/or done away with, our investment will have actual value.

Remember the Stock Market is still controlled by the same people who enjoyed playing with phony profits, created by phony values, created by bad assets, converted into stock, then insured with overvalued CDS, courtesy AIG! They see every effort to save AIG by Government as “intervention” and label it BAD, still unable to see their bad behaviour got us into this mess! And remember, they can’t gamble on PREFERRED SHARES to create derivatives. So of course they’ll try every way there is, to convince us all, this is a very bad thing!

Because AIG is beyond broke, we have set the income payments on those shares way low. But as recovery comes, and actual value is restored (both up and down) we can expect to see money invested paid back at actual value. Meanwhile the Stock Market is just going to have to go back to doing things the way they did back in the day when derivatives on stock were based on ACTUAL value.

Credit Default Swaps were invented in 1997 and require practically no regulatory capital. They became exempt from all regulation with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. (Thank you former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-TX, for attaching that bad bill to the omnibus spending bill. Watch out for those omnibus spending bills.) And remember, banks could never have spent all their capital without Greenspans crazy “structured finance” model.
 
And we would all do well to invest a little time in trying to understand all of this. That might help us understand saving failed banks because of bad investment practices, and saving AIG because they sold worthless CDS all over the world, can only be done by government(s). And, it might help us realize we need NEW, STRICT REGULATIONS, and a return to making Banks be Banks, and non-banks unable to issue bad mortgages.

And it might help us to be a little patient. Except about these bonuses. Keep screaming! You have a right, you are a preferred shareholder! And guess what? President Obama agrees with you!

AIG Bonus? Hell no! Put them in jail.

The biggest scam ever was the subprime mortgage business. Credit was so easy that anyone with a pulse was given a junk mortgage, these, in turn, were shoveled through the doors of the banks and. Next, our best and brightest bankers and credit default swap specialists at AIG prevailed upon the rating agencies to label the junk as AAA securities. These “troubled assets” were then sliced and diced, collaterized, leveraged 30x and sold around the world as if they were gold. The business was such a money machine that it was impossible to say no to it. When the housing bubble burst, and money stopped coming in the door thus ending this ponzi scheme, people lost their life savings, and countries went down. It seems to me that knowingly selling junk as if it were gold is fraud. Trillions of dollars were scammed and yet no one is busted?

Oh please!  Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this sad practice by the banking institutions that we’ve been bailing out since late last year of paying bonuses, going on glamorous vacations, buying jets and having board meetings in exotic settings?

Why is AIG any different?, the whole bailout idea is a farce!

Just like Barney Frank and Obama trying to convince their followers that they are so outraged over the whole thing. Yeah right, Why wasn’t this practice stopped a long time ago right from the get go?

Hey Washington, stop spewing the hypocritial hype!

Most of us are on to you.

I believe that the AIG bonus money is more like $450 million dollars and that is U.S.. Wasn’t it Ms. Amy that brought that little tidbit to light? I believe it was. This is beyond “outrage.” It’s bullshit and it’s criminal bullshit! Bushco lies and tortures and assassinates and Amerika seems okie-dokie with that. Congress bails out the criminals in and around Wall Street and Amerika seems for now, all right with that. What the F*#K is it going to take? Before ‘we the people’ reclaim what is rightfully and Constitutionally ours? Golly, isn’t the Amerika about ‘by the people and for the people and we the people’? That does NOT include the corporate types. Nope!
How many more Americans MUST be tossed into the streets? How many Americans must go hungry? Loose their jobs? Loose their retirement money? Loose the very freaking shirts off their backs? AIG gets ‘bailout AND bonus’ money. BULLSHIT!!!
The AIG et all, greedy soulless vermin must be held to account and publicly. But then and I can concede, this is all just more quixotic raving against a kamikaze wind. We the Amerikan people have only ourselves to blame. Couldn’t put the remote down not even for a minute. Our children and grandchildren will curse then spit at our docile spineless submission to lying criminals!