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and dont forget government interference as wellThis mess is the TRUE DEFINITION of Murphy's Law, what can go wrong, will go wrong.
It is a multitude of mistakes and bad business practices due to greed.... all not even closely related, but where if just one of them was not done, the whole ponzi scheme would not have flourished.
its ALL part of this mess
we never should have been bailing out ANY company
EVER
I believe that as well, Dive. Bush started it . . . and Obama is following in his footsteps.
What to do now? Give the bonuses (or have they already been given); tax them; break the contract (that they damn well knew about)? If the AIG big wigs had any moxy at all, they'd reject the bonuses. I'm not holding my breath.
Obama, Frank and lefties almost turned me into part of the raging mob on this one. But a little perspective people.
AIG was bailed by the left to the tune of about $170 billion. AIG is reported to owe apprixmately $165 Million in contracutal bonuses. Now, Obama is really pulling the wool over people's eyes when he says he is outraged that AIG is spending tax payer money on bonuses. Anyone care to do the math on the above and tell us what percentage of the bailout money is being spent on bonuses?
The other laugher is the implied contention that the taxpayers should be outraged at AIG for this infintecimal expenditure of the bailout money. WRONG Mr. President. The taxpayers should be outraged at YOU. Because it was YOU that decided to spend taxpayer money on them in the first place. We all know the bailout was never popular with the taxpayers.
I have posted this before, but it bares repeating as this a striking example. Milton Friedman said from most to least effective, there are 3 ways to spend money.
Spend your money on you.
Spend other people's money on you.
Spend other people's money on other people.
The bailout is obviously the last. Bailing out these companies is the equivalent if giving an allowance to a kid that didn't do his chores. Doing so simply reinforces bad behavior. Considering AIG needed to be bailed out in the first place, why is everyone so stunned that they are being irresponsible with what is essentially an incentive package to continue irresponsible behavior?
The next is that now are President apparently wants to set a precedent that the government can null legal contracts. The bonuses are money that AIG gaurunteed to there employees. Most of us agree it may not be the wisest in hind sight, but the fact is it is money they have a legal obligation to pay.
YOU HAVE LOST YOUR MIND
the bush administration, secretary paulsen and the FED bailed Aig out...in sept and november of LAST YEAR bern???? do some reading....on it, i have posted several articles today... care
Yep--& they should not have done it either.
The point is that our government including Barack Obama knew last year about these contractual "retention" bonuses. They knew what the amount was going to be--& they also knew the pay-out date of these bonuses.
It was last October that Obama stated--that the party was OVER for Wall St. Well, apparently not. The American taxpayer now ownes 80% of AIG. This administration had every single opportunity to negotiate these retention bonuse's & they didn't.
We can't expect much from them as AIG was a huge campaign contibutor to our politicians cofers. Especially Criss Dodd who received more than $100,000 from AIG. I sure don't see him running to the treasury to give back that money.
They act surprised, shocked & outraged today--to pull the wool over their little following sheeps heads.
you dont have a problem with elected officials taking campaign contributions from companies they are now bailing out with OUR money?hogwash, on returning campaign money... AIG's main business is 100% legit and 100% healthy....plus it's too petty and takes away from the REAL issues....maybe that's what you want to do, but i see that as unproductive...
this one small dept, has caused their entire mess, and this small dept is the one getting their bonuses....?
oh, i dont know, maybe because he was a SENATOR THAT VOTED FOR ITYOU HAVE LOST YOUR MIND
the bush administration, secretary paulsen and the FED bailed Aig out...in sept and november of LAST YEAR bern???? do some reading....on it, i have posted several articles today... care
Yep--& they should not have done it either.
The point is that our government including Barack Obama knew last year about these contractual "retention" bonuses. They knew what the amount was going to be--& they also knew the pay-out date of these bonuses.
It was last October that Obama stated--that the party was OVER for Wall St. Well, apparently not. The American taxpayer now ownes 80% of AIG. This administration had every single opportunity to negotiate these retention bonuse's & they didn't.
We can't expect much from them as AIG was a huge campaign contibutor to our politicians cofers. Especially Criss Dodd who received more than $100,000 from AIG. I sure don't see him running to the treasury to give back that money.
They act surprised, shocked & outraged today--to pull the wool over their little following sheeps heads.
utter nonsense bern, partisan hackery! how could obama possibly know the details of the FEDERAL RESERVE and treasury bailout in september 08 for 85 billion in loans?
mccain could not have possibly known either AND the fed and treasury only committed less than 48hours before AIG was going belly up...to their bailout.
you dont have a problem with elected officials taking campaign contributions from companies they are now bailing out with OUR money?hogwash, on returning campaign money... AIG's main business is 100% legit and 100% healthy....plus it's too petty and takes away from the REAL issues....maybe that's what you want to do, but i see that as unproductive...
this one small dept, has caused their entire mess, and this small dept is the one getting their bonuses....?
i sure as hell do
I don't know the answer to that question. When Japan had all their problems wasn't a lot of it to do with pretending all the banks were solvent when they weren't?AIG is a separate bailout than Tarp, no? After the current contracts run out with the employees they can and should be renegotiated. From what I read there is the possibility that the employer promised something it couldn't deliver without the bailout money...so that may be one way to legally take away the bonuses.
I believe there have been three or four bailout payments to AIG and all but the first were from the TARP money. Of course new contracts will be negotiated when the current ones run out, and if AIG refuses to pay the going rate for financial executives, no doubt they will have to find new ones. I'm sure there are some middle management people who wouldn't mind jumping up to top executive positions even with contracts that were far below industry standards. Who knows? Maybe they will do better than anyone has thought they would.
I doubt there are any legal ways to take the bonus money away.
Much of the money AIG received - $173 billion, I believe - went to pay off contractual obligations, mostly credit default swaps, that we can now all agree should never have been made. Who in the future would want to do business with a company that can be forced by the government to back out of contractual obligations because of negative public opinion? Would you buy an insurance policy from a company like that?
Continually attacking the competence and integrity of large financial institutions will do more harm to our economy in the long run that all the bonuses that have been paid or will be paid. Most economists think Geithner's public-private partnership plan to revive secondary credit markets is nonsense and most agree that it will take $1 trillion to $2 trillion in new government money to deal with the bad assets that are clogging the credit system, but because cowardly and cynical politicians keep stoking public anger at the financial firms there is almost no possibility Congress will come up with that money. Bernanke claims that the recession will not end until we clear up this problem, so are these cheap shots at the financial firms helping or hurting the economy and the American people? When Obama and Frank and others rage at the financial firms, are they helping or hurting the American people?
oh, i dont know, maybe because he was a SENATOR THAT VOTED FOR ITYep--& they should not have done it either.
The point is that our government including Barack Obama knew last year about these contractual "retention" bonuses. They knew what the amount was going to be--& they also knew the pay-out date of these bonuses.
It was last October that Obama stated--that the party was OVER for Wall St. Well, apparently not. The American taxpayer now ownes 80% of AIG. This administration had every single opportunity to negotiate these retention bonuse's & they didn't.
We can't expect much from them as AIG was a huge campaign contibutor to our politicians cofers. Especially Criss Dodd who received more than $100,000 from AIG. I sure don't see him running to the treasury to give back that money.
They act surprised, shocked & outraged today--to pull the wool over their little following sheeps heads.
utter nonsense bern, partisan hackery! how could obama possibly know the details of the FEDERAL RESERVE and treasury bailout in september 08 for 85 billion in loans?
mccain could not have possibly known either AND the fed and treasury only committed less than 48hours before AIG was going belly up...to their bailout.
:doh:
yes, i have been reading the threadoh, i dont know, maybe because he was a SENATOR THAT VOTED FOR ITutter nonsense bern, partisan hackery! how could obama possibly know the details of the FEDERAL RESERVE and treasury bailout in september 08 for 85 billion in loans?
mccain could not have possibly known either AND the fed and treasury only committed less than 48hours before AIG was going belly up...to their bailout.
:doh:
YOU OBVIOUSLY did NOT read the thread....
AIG BAILOUTS did not come from tarp initially, it came from the Federal reserve and treasury working a DEAL out side of TARP, OUTSIDE OF TARP, only later down the road, did AIG get $40 billion in TARP money, OUTSIDE of the initial $152 billion the FED loaned them and this $40 billion of tarp money was used to buy preferred stock in the company from the Fed, reducing the FED's liability down to 112 BILLION from initially $152 billion.
here are links and articles posted above that states such.
so we, as a country have been fooled in to thinking we bailed the banks etc out with ONLY the $700 billion TARP but in fact it was billions upon billions more than this....
t
I don't know much about the Japanese recession. I was under the impression that they did away with mark to market and let banks over value their assets. I'll have to read up on it.I don't know the answer to that question. When Japan had all their problems wasn't a lot of it to do with pretending all the banks were solvent when they weren't?I believe there have been three or four bailout payments to AIG and all but the first were from the TARP money. Of course new contracts will be negotiated when the current ones run out, and if AIG refuses to pay the going rate for financial executives, no doubt they will have to find new ones. I'm sure there are some middle management people who wouldn't mind jumping up to top executive positions even with contracts that were far below industry standards. Who knows? Maybe they will do better than anyone has thought they would.
I doubt there are any legal ways to take the bonus money away.
Much of the money AIG received - $173 billion, I believe - went to pay off contractual obligations, mostly credit default swaps, that we can now all agree should never have been made. Who in the future would want to do business with a company that can be forced by the government to back out of contractual obligations because of negative public opinion? Would you buy an insurance policy from a company like that?
Continually attacking the competence and integrity of large financial institutions will do more harm to our economy in the long run that all the bonuses that have been paid or will be paid. Most economists think Geithner's public-private partnership plan to revive secondary credit markets is nonsense and most agree that it will take $1 trillion to $2 trillion in new government money to deal with the bad assets that are clogging the credit system, but because cowardly and cynical politicians keep stoking public anger at the financial firms there is almost no possibility Congress will come up with that money. Bernanke claims that the recession will not end until we clear up this problem, so are these cheap shots at the financial firms helping or hurting the economy and the American people? When Obama and Frank and others rage at the financial firms, are they helping or hurting the American people?
If by pretending you mean not talking about the banks' problems, no, there was plenty of talk about what was wrong with the banks, but if by pretending you mean lacking the will to do much about it, then, yes, in Japan then and in the US now, lacking the will to spend what is necessary to fix the banks was and is the main obstacle to recovery.
Japan spent $6.5 trillion on stimulus projects over a decade, running their national debt up to 180% of GDP, without producing any revival of the private sector, but shortly after clearing the books of the banks that were salvageable of bad assets and recapitalizing them and letting others fail, private investment began to increase and the private sector economy began to recover. Geithner was a financial attaché in Japan during the early stages of the lost decade, and the lesson he says he took away from it was that Japan didn't spend enough on stimulus projects or spend it soon enough or fast enough. Interestingly, the public-private partnership plan Geithner is now pushing was tried by Japan and failed before the government finally found the courage to spend the money needed to fix its banks.
Even if Obama-Geithner continue to balk at asking Congress for the money necessary to fix the banks, the recession in the private sector could end in the sense that it will stop contracting, but the rate of recovery will depend to a large extent on the amount of money available to finance that recovery. So it is possible that we will see the recession end in a year or so but still see 8% to 10% unemployment continue for years to come.
By churning out cheap shots at the competence and integrity of financial firms, politicians like Frank have run public opinion about more bailout money to fix the banks so low that it is virtually impossible for anyone in Congress who hopes to be reelected to vote for more bailout money, and that may make it impossible for any recovery to occur any time soon.
And now we hear that most of the AIG money went to foreign banks.
One presumes that the money was saving the banks as they were playing derivatives casino, too.
Okay, it's official..let they all fail, says I.
Let this entirely corrupted society collapse, I don't really give a shit.
This news is just too is just damned much.
I hope somebody's making a list and checking it twice.
Sooner or later the Americans are gonna find out who is naughty and nice.
Revolution is coming to town.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised.And now we hear that most of the AIG money went to foreign banks. 62 Billion I heard.
One presumes that the money was saving the banks as they were playing derivatives casino, too.
Okay, it's official..let they all fail, says I.
Let this entirely corrupted society collapse, I don't really give a shit.
This news is just too is just damned much.
I hope somebody's making a list and checking it twice.
Sooner or later the Americans are gonna find out who is naughty and nice. Yes,, and I'm afraid it the Democrats,, and Bush!
Revolution is coming to town.
Aw, you're getting hysterical. We've lived in a global economy for a while. We are the leader of the global economy. We can't fix us without fixing the rest of the world.And now we hear that most of the AIG money went to foreign banks.
One presumes that the money was saving the banks as they were playing derivatives casino, too.
Okay, it's official..let they all fail, says I.
Let this entirely corrupted society collapse, I don't really give a shit.
This news is just too is just damned much.
I hope somebody's making a list and checking it twice.
Sooner or later the Americans are gonna find out who is naughty and nice.
Revolution is coming to town.
You remember wrong. There was no vote on the AIG bailout.i seem to recall the dem controled congress.....voted overwhelmingly for this plan......
oh, i dont know, maybe because he was a SENATOR THAT VOTED FOR ITutter nonsense bern, partisan hackery! how could obama possibly know the details of the FEDERAL RESERVE and treasury bailout in september 08 for 85 billion in loans?
mccain could not have possibly known either AND the fed and treasury only committed less than 48hours before AIG was going belly up...to their bailout.
:doh:
YOU OBVIOUSLY did NOT read the thread....
AIG BAILOUTS did not come from tarp initially, it came from the Federal reserve and treasury working a DEAL out side of TARP...
Funny ... though expected. The extreme left are denying that Obama supports this bailout crap so they can say it's all Jrs. fault, but the extreme right are using it to say Obama is bad while ignoring the fact that Jr. did it to.
