Re: richfam

Your comment: “Now we have finger pointing, “naming names”, protests in front of these peoples homes, they’ve pulled their children out of school, death threats, grassley telling them the should kill themselves, 90% taxed, many have already retuned the money, evil foriegners (maureen dowd’s), their digraced, will not get a job again in their chosen profession…etc.

What did they do when OUR children died?  or When whole family’s existences were being THREATENED or WIPED OUT because their actions?  or When The People are extremely overtaxed given their meager wages to pay for this fraud?  What did they do?  Aren’t these the same ones who called us WHINERS…. and gave us that age old advice to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” or to “pitch in” and “do our part”?

They cared not one whit if your child, mother or spouse died because of what had been levied upon you by their actions.  Do you really suppose that anyone now cares how they FEEL.  We live the reality of their actions, they only imagine it.

For some 30 years a rightwing think tank campaign has buried us with propaganda telling us and intimidating us on how we should think about wealth. Since then, executives have been stealing us blind. During this time rightwing propaganda has taken its toll. We all are trained to believe that we can all get rich and that the rich have earned theirs thru hard work and intelligence. Nothing could be farther from the truth and we are just now beginning to relearn that.

Fraud, greed and exploitation are more the ingredients of affluence than anything else, at least in our current world.

The so called specious bonus payments made to the anointed ones at AIG amount to less than .001% of the total “loans” made to the corp. by Uncle Sammy.

We are a country of laws that must be upheld. Contractual agreements are subject to our laws and must be upheld even if our elected representatives fail to read the fine print in their haste and largess. Passing ex post facto legislation will not pass constitutional muster not with standing the repugnance of paying off the these obligations.

I read in the papers that the village of Fairfield, Conn. is being besieged by the union rabble rousers and other malcontents from adjacent communities to protest the AIG executives who live there and are accused of lining their pockets with hard earned public tax dollars.

That is the price one must pay when one reaches the pinnacle of “success”. But all hell breaks loose when the unwashed finds out that the Wall Street nobility are feeding at the public trough while the rabble are suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune by losing their jobs and being foreclosed on their property by some of the very people who are responsible and are receiving the bonus rewards.

The elite and their children are destined to be the leaders in American business and politics. Their children must be enrolled in the top academic universities and colleges in order to learn and meet their fellow compatriots.

The cost of this education is far beyond the what the sub-economic social class can afford. If we are to preserve some semblance of order and control of the top leadership in the American and world wide business community, then we must compensate those in the prominent positions even if they have failed in their fiduciary obligations at times.

The preservation of this economic dynasty is absolutely essential to the American living standard and our way of life.

I believe it was a mistake for Bush and Obama to put their “Treasury Secretaries” in charge of these bailouts contracts. It would have been wiser to appoint some kind “bailout cop” like Eliot Spitzer to oversee everything, especially when you consider the shady track record of some of these financial corporations - AIG’s questionable practices have been going on since 2005.

I also agree with other posters who think we need to stop selecting our “Treasury Secretaries” from financial corporations like Goldman Sachs. Clearly, any potential strength these people might bring to the table is automatically negated by the “potential” for a conflict of interest and/or “appearance” of conflict of interest in setting up these contracts.

etc. Personalize it for a moment: You are a professional at AIG charged with taking some sort of risk on behalf of the firm, the previous quarter was aweful but your manager comes to you and says we’re commited to you, we need you to help right the ship and for that we want to retain you for 500k/yr for two years (that’s the 1mm we read in the paper btw). So what do you do? Sign the contract and feed your family or think no I’ll be blamed by congress, the press, and my neighbor of destorying the financial system..hmmm, I should just kill myself now and skip the contract. How do you comapre the collective bargaining agreement of the UAW (they have lawyers too I think) to these few contracts. Lets say one of these people actually commits suicide? Will you cheer? If you answer yes then read this:
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You’ve got your work cut out for you if you’re attempting to drum up some sympathy for the racketeers at AIG, richfam. Yes, they should have just killed themselves and skipped the contract, IMO. The world would be a better place.

Power has always rested on the use of, or threat of the use of, force. Therefore it’s instructive to note which way the guns are pointing in a given instance.

For example, when the original TARP deal was cut, eight guys got together in a room and when they exited pointed a gun at the rest of us and said, “Hand over 700 billion dollars—or else.” (Or else the whole freaking system goes down.) On the other hand, when the auto companies asked for a measly 15 billion dollars to tide them over this very rough patch, it was the Congress that held a gun to their heads and said, “Not one dime until you f**k your workers by violating the sanctity of their contractual rights to decent wages and pre- and post-retirement benefits.” In both cases, the malefactors of great wealth or their toadies in Congress are wielding the guns.

The lesson here is that nothing good will come of this mess unless and until it is we, the people, who are holding a gun to the heads of the corporate aristocracy and their minions in government, and not vice-versa. As Hume’s Paradox points out, we have always had the power, and clearly, the time to use it is now.

Aux Barricades, mes amis!

“We the People” are the Laborers, the Consumers and the taxpayers the entire economy rest on. WE are all One in the Same.So I am constantly offended by the Repugs attempt to claim they are all different entities. Are they just experiencing the longitudinal effects of licking lead paint as children- or do they Think We are?
The Repugs and their Covert operatives dolled up in Blue camo (DLC’s ‘Third Way’), are nothing more than Red Coated foot soldiers for the Corp Crowns and their Noble class elites. ‘Trickle Down’ was blatantly a ‘let them eat cake’ doctrine. Who hasn’t realized the mechanism to Trickle Down are the beloved economic oppressive stratdgies of a Feudalistic Cast system? shit I recognized that shit as soon as it came out of the Alzheimer patient puppet Ronny’s mouth. Something you dont’ need to be a historical Einstien to figure out. “trickle”-verb, run out,exclude- Just a ‘Rogets 21st Century Thesaurus’, to comprehend. “FREE market”, “We the People” Who has been excluded thus causing the Economy to Run out of fuel?Trickel Down was an Innately UnAmerican, easily recognized and Avioded, Thus a Treasonous Doctrine and it should be Prosecuted as such.

Any agreement, including a legal agreement, is inforced by power.  As the US power system reaches the end of its life cycle, power becomes increasingly once sided as economic inequality reaches unprecidented proportions.  So the rich can do as they like, whatever the laws, unless the population mobilizes to stop them.  And the rich have Obama and his administration as their agents.

So a year ago some people received contracts for bonus payments that should never have been signed by management (the AIG management had to agree to the contracts). Now we have finger pointing, “naming names”, protests in front of these peoples homes, they’ve pulled their children out of school, death threats, grassley telling them the should kill themselves, 90% taxed, many have already retuned the money, evil foriegners (maureen dowd’s), their digraced, will not get a job again in their chosen profession…etc. Personalize it for a moment: You are a professional at AIG charged with taking some sort of risk on behalf of the firm, the previous quarter was aweful but your manager comes to you and says we’re commited to you, we need you to help right the ship and for that we want to retain you for 500k/yr for two years (that’s the 1mm we read in the paper btw). So what do you do? Sign the contract and feed your family or think no I’ll be blamed by congress, the press, and my neighbor of destorying the financial system..hmmm, I should just kill myself now and skip the contract. How do you comapre the collective bargaining agreement of the UAW (they have lawyers too I think) to these few contracts. Lets say one of these people actually commits suicide? Will you cheer? If you answer yes then read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_Statement

Why would Geithner and Summers be concerned about lawsuits from AIG anyway?  Who is going to pay for their lawyers?

The AIG Philosophy:  “We don’t redo contracts.  Only the little people redo contracts.”

The real problem with these “contracts” is that they ensure the bonus, before the work is done. How can they be held accountable for their actions, and what will motivate them to carry out their duties, when they are paid before the house is raised?

Thanks for this article.

If “the little guy” could afford litigation, his contracts probably wouldn’t be renegotiated so quickly.

If “the little guy” could afford lobbyists…...

Does “the little guy” have equal rights in this country?

You must be joking.

As the mortgage meltdown has shown, some people enter into bad contracts, some dont.

If you lose on your contract, the only person to blame is yourself.

The Democrat congress leaders have to play to both wall street and liberals. This is why you get so much double speak from them.

They have to be for bonuses and at the same time be against them.

But make no mistake, The Obama Administration protected the AIG contracts so if you want to blame anyone, blame them.

Let’s not stop there. Millions of American’s sign contracts for credit cards, created by army’s of attorney’s. These contracts are so convoluted and perverse that without a legal degree, it would be hard to understand what your are signing. Even with an attorney the sublte details of your contract may not be fully understood until it goes before a judge.

Which brings us to the following. Your credit card contract allows your card company to raise your interest rate, any time they feel like it, charge you penalities for the slightest infraction, and cancel your card without cause, subsequently sending it to collection, where in a matter of days your bill can double or tripple, though you have done nothing wrong. After that they can force you to go to mandatory abritation, that prevents you from taking them to court, and getting relief from them.

If you just walk away they will take you to court, and lay claim to everything you own, from your house to your car to your first born child. It’s all in the contract.

And when, due to their incompetence, if they start to go under, you will be forced to bail them out through tax dollars collected from you.

Some people rob you with a gun, some with a pen, but theft by guile is just as much a crime as the mugger who put’s his Glock in your back at the ATM. It’s also a lot more profitable.

Maybe Californian’s should write letters to Mr. Cuomo in N.Y., maybe he could help us, because California sure as hell won’t.

It’s called a Feudalistic Cast System which began with ‘Trickle Down’..Duh.It’s been 30 yrs in the making,and during this time they have infested and infected every part of our form of Gov’t and Free market. Assuring that the country was enslaved and indebted ‘For the Corps and By the Corps’. Just family Crest with snapping updated Logos, Same ideology and agenda.
If we hope to regain our country from this treasonous doctrine, we must prosecute them for what they have done- not just War crimes, but Treason (esp Economic) and Crimes against Humanity. Start from the center of the Web of conspiracy Cheney,Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and work your way down & outwards. Don’t forget the Clintons either. Hillary never recinded her Repug memebership card and Bill guaranteed our collapse with NAFTA and the singing of Gramm’s ‘Modernization Act’. Nor forget the Fed & Treasury Secs who have intentionally decided to be derelict in their duties of Oversight and Regulation/legal enforcment, which allowed the ‘Street’ gang to Defraud, embezzle, launder and extort money from individuals, workers, tax payers and consumers.
These are not merely ‘white Collar’ crimes, they are crimes prosecutable under RICO statutes, Treason, War Crimes and ultimatley Crimes against Humanity. additinally those who have acted as their PR depts in the mass media should be prosecuted under the same charges since they are the ones who dispensed the propaganda, which mislead and outright lied to the Citizens of this Nation- they were not acting under the Duties of a ‘Free Press’ or in the public interest which is key to a Democratic Society.

My landlord handed me the “contract”,the lease agreement about two years ago. I, being somewhat outspoken, preceded to express my opinion. “you know,’ I said, ” this is meaningless, to me, just a piece of paper” He smiled slyly and said “sign here and initial there”. We, in the “real world” are governed by Natural Law. Understanding and Compassion are the Judge and Jury. Let’s put the “Baby Boomers” out to pasture. It’s our turn….........