AIG

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Asshats In Government

Michelle Malkin called it correctly. There are certainly some prominent asshats trying to ruin our sacred land, and if we do not take a stand they will succeed. I have no doubt that these IDIOTS sit in their offices and chuckle at just how gullible and uninformed the vast majority of people are out there.

Up next into the croissfire is Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal. This is the guy who is on a mission to extort, by any means possible, the bonuses paid to the AIG executives. The reason he gives is the most laughable, and actually the most frightening of any I have yet heard:
“Because they are undeserving of it.”

So now the government decides who is deserving and who is not? Like them or not, those men and women were under contract. What would happen to modern day pro sports if every athlete had to return his or her salary because they were not ‘effective’ in their endeavors? Granted, some of them SHOULD give them back but are you willing to say with 100% accuracy that they are undeserving of it?

This is where the government is heading, straight down a slippery slope of overbearing control where nothing is going to stop it if We The People do not take a firm stance and draw an unwavering line in the sand.

The revolution is at hand. Will you be a leader or a follower?

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Dress Warm, Hell Is Freezing Over

When the word came out that AIG executives were getting bonuses, public outcry reached a crescendo. Rightly or wrongly, the fact was that these people had received compensation as detailed in the various employment contracts signed by them and their employer. I don’t think that those who actually ran the operation should get those bonuses, but the middle-tier folks should not be sucked in because of following corporate direction.

Add to that the group of folks working outside of the Dirivatives department, people whose departments actually MADE money for AIG and it becomes apparent that there was much more to the story than just the old ‘evil big business’.

Of course, our elected oaf-icials (again) began crying foul. Just like during this past election, they promoted the class warfare issue and decried that the AIG employees MUST give back the bonus money or they would get taxed so heavily as to recoup the entire fund. I was glad to see that our congress was looking out for the little guy. Heck, even House Republicans, 85 of them, joined the band wagon to extort private citizens of their money. It does not matter, to me, about that pesky founding document (Consti-something or other) that provides the basis for all binding contracts. This was a crisis that had to be immediately dealt with.

Luckily, our hallowed halls were righted with the passing of a 90% tax on those criminals. We The People were on our way to getting our $200 million back. Necessary, though, was to let go of the $65 billion paid to foreign banks, as there was no one really to focus our anger on about that. Not important. Since those evil employees live here in the US, we can bus ourselves to their houses and give them what for!

It also does not matter that this precedent would allow congress to, later on, target any other private citizen with a tax. If that person did a bad thing (like make money for The Man) they deserve to get the shaft. Congress has been shafting the rest of the country for ages; why would they be any different?

I am perturbed, though. It seems that some in the Senate have blocked this legislation. It seems they have actually (idiots) looked at the illegality of this bill that creates a law to tax a specific group of 70 people. Who do they think they are? They trample the Constitution repeatedly and NOW they grow a conscience? What, have they been listening to the PEOPLE? Did they hear the VOICES raised up in anger over the punishing(however well-intentioned) of private citizens?

Hell hath frozen over. Dress warm.

The revolution is at hand. Will you be a leader or a follower?

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The Hits Begining To Land?

After all of Glorious Leader’s teflon deflections of anything wrong over the past 2+ years of campaigning, with respect to the latest fiasco surrounding the Treasury Secretary’s inability to get anything right is showing a chink in the armor.

Even Dilbert Gibbs could not find the words to answer some poignant questioning by White House press people.

The revolution is at hand. Will you be a leader or a follower?

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The CrapWeasel Congress

Edward Liddy, just recently put in charge of AIG to get the giant back on track, who took no bonus and is getting paid a whopping ONE DOLLAR A YEAR salary, was railed against and threatened by everyone on Barney Fife’s Fwank’s panel for what he was trying to do with the bonus money for executives. He was grilled and yelled at all afternoon, all the while trying to protect his employees from getting publicly outed to society (recall how well that went in California when the hater gays outed all of those who supported Prop 8??). He even read them death threats people had received, to which our hair lipped heroine (Fwank) commented “All of us here receive those”.

I am confident that when someone dies because of getting a bonus for trying to do the job, Miss Fwank will be there with compensation in hand for the family of said, murdered employee. However, that is not the point of my post, but only a lead in to the real deal.

Chris Dodd swore up and down that he had no clue about the amendment in the bailout bill that allowed companies to continue to pay the bonuses. He then went on to rail AIG for being criminally negligent, an evil capitalistic Satan whose soul was sold to the Wall Street gods. He went on CNN and railed against the insurance giant, vowing to get the money back to the people.

Until today, wherein Mr. Dodd humbly admitted that he, in fact, did add the provision back into the bill, at the ordering of that evil, mean, wicked Treasury Guy. You know, Turbo Tax Tim, who was in charge of getting the bailout of AIG in order along with former secretary Paulsen.

His ass should be in front of the Ethics Committee. He could care less about the people, as long as he stays clean in all of this. Crooks, crooks, and more crooks.

The revolution is at hand. Will you be a leader or a follower?

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No Contract Need Be Honored, Says Fed

The recent debacle occurring at AIG is almost (almost) laughable. Here we have a large company under contractual obligation to its employees. Because congress has tried to regulate the salaries of those on Wall Street, and because public opinion of big business is driven by the hostile media, corporate executives have found a relatively solid way of retaining the best and the brightest; they use bonus money. I get a bonus. Nothing near what Wall Street execs get, but a few extra dollars in the pocket are nice at the end of a long year. Am I going to be the next target? Am I being greedy?

Bonuses are in contracts. An employee gets a lower rate of pay, based on the assumption that performance bonuses will be paid at year’s end. Now, before you scream and cry at the fact that AIG lost a lot of money this past year, don’t forget that AIG is a huge company. The fact is that a lot of AIG’s divisions were profitable. However, they were caught by the severe downturn like the rest of the world. The reason they lost so much is the same reason that so many people lost their 401K. They are worth less. They have less available cash because their stock isn’t worth squat.

Does that mean that all of the bonuses should be paid? Well, yes. In fact, the very same congressmen (Dodd, Fwank) who are screaming at the horrific scene are the ones who wrote the terms of the bailout. In those terms, it is explicitly stated that all contractual bonuses will be honored. Why, then, are they coming out with such vehement rhetoric? Did they not read their own words? Why are they not clamoring over the union contracts that guarantee pay and bonuses? Is it because the unions are good and the evil, rich Wall Street guys need to be put in their place? Are they trying to fight for the little guys on Main Street?

Hardly.

The fact is that congress has, is, and shall continue to get funded by the very same people they are chastising. They put on this big front, making it look as if they care, all the while using this ‘crisis’ to drive a more socialistic agenda. As Ed Morrissey put it, congress could have avoided the entire problem by letting AIG file for Chapter 11.

Idiots.