House Approves Bill to Reclaim AIG Bonuses through New Tax

March 3rd. C-Span. When did the Congress, Geithner, administration know?



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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.

It just amazes me that we can find the 435 stupidest people in America and elect them all to the House.

WTF is wrong with these people? Until 2006, day in and day out, the rubes and bumpkins of the Republican Party demonstrated to us that the proper education level for governing the House was grade 8.

Now, you would have thought that things might have gotten a bit better. But apparently, the Democrats looked and said "Ha, we can top that!" Now the drug-addled, brain-dead hippies of the Democrat Party are trying to outdo even the GOP, proving that, yes, you can drive the collective IQ of the chamber even lower.

This has to be one of the stupidest things I have seen in a long time. Why the hell would anyone good bother sticking around at these institutions? And why would any organization even remotely want to take government money now?

It just amazes me that we can find the 435 stupidest people in America and elect them all to the House.

WTF is wrong with these people? Until 2006, day in and day out, the rubes and bumpkins of the Republican Party demonstrated to us that the proper education level for governing the House was grade 8.

Now, you would have thought that things might have gotten a bit better. But apparently, the Democrats looked and said "Ha, we can top that!" Now the drug-addled, brain-dead hippies of the Democrat Party are trying to outdo even the GOP, proving that, yes, you can drive the collective IQ of the chamber even lower.

This has to be one of the stupidest things I have seen in a long time. Why the hell would anyone good bother sticking around at these institutions? And why would any organization even remotely want to take government money now?

But let's point our fingers at the right group of people, and that's the government. It's the government that stole our money in the first place, and this wouldn't even be an issue had they not done so. So to fix the problem that they caused they decide to go against the Constitution in many different ways? I believe, as editec said, that that is far worse than the bonuses.

It just amazes me that we can find the 435 stupidest people in America and elect them all to the House.

I gave you a peer reviewed current article concerning the warming of the oceans. (it was from 2000!)

nah this more like a banana republic......passing legislation to encourage a behaviour....having the whole thing blow up in their face......blaming everyone but themselves.....passing bills without reading them to try to fix their mistake....then holding hearings blaming others for their new round of mistakes......then passing laws after the fact to fix yet another one of their fuck ups......

i sure hope this changes soon.......

Comandante Obama
Peter Robinson, 02.27.09, 12:01 AM ET

"But you don't understand," the Colombian said. "We've seen this before."

"He's right, my good friend," the Cuban said. "We Latin Americans know the pattern. Believe me we do."

The American tried to shrug off the Latin Americans' warning. To his consternation, he found that he couldn't. Peron, Fidel, now Chavez, they insisted. The emergence of misrule, corruption and economic stagnation in Latin American nations follows a particular sequence or progression. Now the sequence was unfolding in the United States.

"It starts with a cult of personality," the Cuban explained. "One man declares himself the jefe, the caudillo, the big leader."

Had Obama attempted to instigate something like a cult of personality? The American found the charge impossible to refute. During the campaign, Obama had failed to advance a genuine agenda, instead campaigning on "hope" and "change." In effect, he had asked Americans to turn the nation over to him on blind faith. He would, he promised, transcend racial and partisan divides in his very person.

The One had thrived, moreover, on addressing vast gatherings. In Berlin, he had addressed a quarter of a million Germans. At the Democratic convention, he had given his acceptance speech not in a convention hall before a few thousand supporters, but in a stadium before 80,000. In some subtle but palpable way, the American had to admit, Obama had transgressed our political tradition. He had reduced his supporters to facelessness.

And to an astonishing extent, the American had to grant, the elites--Congress, academics, the mainstream media--had proved only too willing to place themselves in thrall to Obama. On Feb. 17, for example, the president had signed an $800 billion "stimulus" bill, at least three-quarters of which was devoted not to stimulus but to political payoffs. Less than a week later, he had hosted a White House "summit" on fiscal responsibility. Had the press noted the contrast? Had it objected? The very idea.

Let George W. Bush mispronounce a word, and the press would howl for a month. Let Barack Obama offend against language itself--let him suggest that he signed perhaps the most reckless fiscal act in American history as an instance of "fiscal responsibility," engaging in an almost Orwellian example of doublespeak--and the press utters scarcely a murmur.

"After the cult of personality," the Colombian explained, "what comes next is nationalization." Fidel had nationalized the Cuban sugar mills, Chavez the Banco de Venezuela, Morales the Bolivian oil and gas industries.

Obama? He may not have been issuing sweeping diktats. But as the American had to admit, he had already presided over a vast expansion of the federal stake in banks, in the automobile industry and in the mortgage markets. And in his address before Congress, he had proposed a new federal presence in health care, an industry that accounts for a full one-seventh of the economy.

"The last step?" asked the Cuban. "Censorship. It won't be obvious at first--they're always too smart for that. But it will come."

"Never," replied the American. "We have the First Amendment."

"And soon enough," the Cuban said, smiling sadly, "you will also have the Fairness Doctrine."...

Tally me bananas [Mark Steyn]
John Hinderaker asks: "Are we a banana republic?"

Wells Fargo didn't want any TARP money, but the government forced it to take more than $5 billion worth, so Wells Fargo employees who receive bonuses would be subject to Pelosi's proposed tax. Say you're a teller at Wells Fargo and you're married to a lawyer who makes $250,000 this year. You get a $10,000 bonus for your good work during 2008. The government steals it all (90 percent federal plus 8.5 percent state plus, unless it's included in the 90 percent, 3 percent Medicare). That is simply insane.

If the Pelosi bill is actually enacted into law (which I still think is doubtful) and upheld by the courts, there is no limit to the arbitrary power of Congress. In that event, we have no property rights and there is no Constitution—no equal protection clause, no due process clause, no impairment of contracts clause, no bill of attainder/ex post facto law clause. Instead, we are living in a majoritarian tyranny.

More:

Tally me bananas - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online

In defense of the banks that money was forced upon, seems many are looking to return it, now that the tentacles are becoming clear:

northern trust return TARP - Google News

While it's a mix of links, one can see the 'good banks' through the spin of Barney Frank's machinations.

What happened with Northern Trust, one of the 'targets' since January spun by the Democrats to keep people from seeing what the right hand was doing, is a key example of this.

Rep. Waters Demands Obama Clarify AIG Bonus Provision

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., called on President Obama on Friday to explain what happened when a provision was added to his economic stimulus bill last month that allowed AIG employees to receive $165 million in bonuses.

Waters' comments were the strongest criticism yet from a Democrat over a controversy that continues to grow.