Kevin this AIG issue can be summed up in two words: Due Diligence.

The US invested or bought 80% of AIG then why did no one go over their books and contracts with a fine tooth comb? If Coca Cola were buying Pepsi Cola, I am certain that Coke's accountants would pour over Pepsi's books for several weeks prior to paying a dime to invest or acquire them. Due Diligence!

AIG certainly played into his need for a distraction so that he could move on to destroy other parts of our capitalist economy.

Finally, Before Dodd, Franks, Spector,Pelosi or any other congressional dimwit wants to tell AIG or any other bailout company that it cannot honor contracts or how to spend tax payer money then they need to tell ALL current welfare recipients that they cannot use their welfare payments to buy cell phones, wide screen tv's, computers or lobster! In order to use that money to buy anything other than the basic necessities of life they have to send a request to Congress! They are receiving taxpayer bailout money too!!

Sir RonB

p.s. Is it just me or does Barney Frank sound like Sylvester the Cat. "Suffering succotash."

SirRon - You need to be blogging my brother. Excellent addendum to this one, as usual!

Cindy Merry March 17

Oh Kevin you've nailed it...and don't forget they Congress voted themselves all raises....

Stephanie Perry March 17

or like conducting an intervention in a meth lab

Steph, not sure of the reference, but I'm sure it's relevant? :-)

Cindy, I agree that Congress should give back ALL their salaries, and royalties from book deals, speaking fees, etc.

Kevin Davis March 17

This is why the bailouts was a bad idea in the first place..

Raysaun L. Jackson March 17

This Hussein guy is a joke....Zzzzzz....wake me up in 4 years if we still have a country....

Raysaun, we could be brothers!

James L. Guest March 17

Yes, and Congress deserves their raises even LESS than the AIG guys deserve theirs.

Kevin. I do. Just not as good as you!

ronbolling.blogspot.com

I wrote about this yesterday.

Sir RonB

Dawn Damaris Maldonado Perez March 17

@James - YES!!!! that's what i'm saying.... congress should give their salaries back for the b.s. job they been doing... republicans and democrats!

David Sforza March 17

No wonder the Dems are so pissed. They can't blame this on anyone. They own it and it's a mess.

True James and David!

The dems and company were too stupid to look over the contracts and now they're whining. They had no accountability on the money when they gave it away to begin with and worse people than the AIG execs are making out like bandits as they put it. Like say REAL BANDITS. Now that they're looking both stupid and foolish on multiple fronts, they're crying foul. I love it when libs are exposed for the stupidity they produce. Now only if that Natural Selection would just kick in.

madmath1 - The knuckleheads are starting to get a glimpse of how real incompetency behaves! I LOVE IT!

Zubata

The median income per household member in 2006 was approximately $26,000.00. That translates to the average Joe having to work 38 and a half years (virtually an entire working career) to earn $1,000,000.00. These AIG "executives" received the equivalent of the average Joe's lifetime earnings running the Company into the ground, and that's the lowest "executive" on the totem pole. One of the noodnicks (Schumer) who pushed this porkulus package was proposing a 100% tax on these earnings today. That's the first thing that I've heard lately that makes even a little sense. I can't believe how disgusted I am with this so called Government of ours.

Please excuse the phrase, but "there is hope." Obama's policies will fail and hope lies in their swift failure. Oddly enough, the faster Obama burns our cash in his ill-conceived takeover bids, the faster his poll numbers sink, market confidence erodes, and Obama voters get laid off.

They were promised hope and prosperity. Hope is elusive, prosperity is not.

Obama voters can't weather two years of misery, let alone four. Rahm and Axelrod's hype machine can't pay the bills for his base.

Just as fast as those who make the country work (non-Obama voters) think Obama is in a box by virtue of his impotence and his soon-to-become pariah status, market forces will again reign, and we will begin recovery.

I think that will happen before the mid-term elections. At that time liberals and RINO's will be shown the door and much of this nationization nonsense will be undone. This includes, to the extent possible, the AIG bailout as well.

Kurt, I completely agree, and I say to fellow Conservatives, batten down the hatches. Do all you can to insure failure. Let the Libs live with their misery for a few years, so we can usher in the New Reagan Era!

Temlakos

There's just one catch: such a bill would be an unconstitutional bill of attainder. I suspect that Schmuck Schumer proposed it only to feel good, knowing that it would never stand up in court.

2612

With the Democrats, righteous indignation is more important than actually doing something.

@Zubata
You can't be serious. 100% tax on a bonus. If they do it to those guys it doesn't stop there. Whatever they put in place will be grounds to do it to you. Outrage is one thing but stupidity is to the bone. Don't have stupidity in your bones.

Sir RonB

Sorry Kevin I couldn't resist.

SirRon - No problem, good Sir!

atomheartmother

The real travesty here is the hypocrisy of the Congressional leaders who oversaw the AIG bailouts and are now acting like they're appalled. Geithner KNEW the bonuses were likely to be given, and now he's "outraged." We were told this clown was the "only one" that could fix the economy, so even though he's a tax cheat, he was confirmed. Now that it's clear he's a blithering idiot, he should be removed.

Blinker1315

I agree with atomheartmother, and would add that Obama also knew about the bonuses months ago and is now using it to stir populist outrage. I certainly don't condone the blithering of AIG execs and managers, but this could've been dealt with last fall.

MissAmericanPie

AIG bonuses and Wallstreet fatcats are just a means to deflect the real blame, they are the scapegoats, and the people are eating up the rouse. I mean we're talking about $20 million allocated in bonuses compared to the trillion dollars the governmnet has spent nationalizing the banks, it's a friggen joke and by comparison a drop in the deficit bucket.

Well, don't you know, no one had the time to look into all these bothersome details. It was an EMERGENCY people!!! Obama had to start handing money out fast before anyone stopped to look and say - wait a minute maybe we better think this over. Maybe we should not only know exactly how much money is going out, but exactly where it is going and why.

But that didn't happen because - it was an EMERGENCY!!!! Obama told us the country had stopped breathing and immediate CPR in the form of mega-money had to go out - NOW!!! Taking stock of the situation was not an option. That takes too long. We'll never recover if we stop to figure out what we're doing. Just trust Obama to do it right!

Ooookay.

While everyone is now distracted by the AIG bonuses - one must wonder what other "little" things are being missed along the way. (oh my those idiotic bothersome little details)

Could it be that Obama was hoping the outrage over the AIG money would turn attention away from the fact that he wants our wounded warriors to start paying for their own health care? That he thinks they should get their own insurance to pay for recovery from war wounds in service to this country. All while sending billions to the enemies these soldiers have been fighting...

How many other things that haven't even been noticed yet.

My my.

Teresa - Other bothersome details are tings like China, Iran, North Korea, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and so on. Just the "little" things!

WittyBanter

I don't know how or why but it is all the fault of Bush.

/sarcasm

Spindig

FTA: "Obama and Congress are to blame for not putting restrictions on our money, that they wrecklessly doled out. Again, it is they who should be read the riot act. This is like your loaning your wino cousin $20, and then getting mad at him when he buys wine. Oh, and you will never see that $20 again!" LOL

Speaking of alcohol examples, the government to me is like an alcoholic parent lecturing their teenage son about drinking.

Galen Foster Elliott March 18

ONE of my favorite things regarding the bonuses is the fact that it shows the Dems passed the stimulus without reading it - it was in there for them to see. It's the "Dodd Amendment"! I LOVE that Chris Dodd is outraged - and both he and Obama received more money from AIG than any other candidates. As usual....little hypocritical. Uh, yes.

mnocket

I think the Democrats may come to regret that they stirred this bonus issue up with all their righteous indignation. They've got people all pissed about something that they knew about and explicitly exempted from the salary caps in the stimulus bill because they knew they were contractual obligations. Despite all the outrage, congress will not be able to stop the bonuses. What people will remember is how pissed off they are that This President and This Congress continue to spend outrageous amounts of money on stimulus and bailout plans.

FyreGoddess

Your sarcasm is misplaced. While it's not *all* the fault of anyone, it was Bush who passed the first financial bailout with NO OVERSIGHT.

FTA: "Next, Obama and Congress are to blame for not putting restrictions on our money, that they wrecklessly doled out."

Misplaced blame again. It was Bush who didn't put restrictions on the money that they recklessly doled out.

SQLDigger

More oversight is the liberal solution to everything. Funny how Fannie & Freddie have way more oversight than AIG, and they were the first to tank. And guess what? They're still handing out executive bonuses, too.

Just because Bush was an idiot to approve the bailout in the first place doesn't mean the current administration HAS to add bad to worse by ensuring the future failure of AIG by restricting them from operating as a private business (which is almost a given as it is, but then again - there was no need to bail them out in October, and there wasn't a need to go all in by approving another $60B.

The executive bonuses are small potatoes - great politics to stir up the rabble, but they pale in comparison to the stupidity of bailing out several broken companies (let's not forget the cluster-fuck that is Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) and then upping the ante.

atomheartmother

"Misplaced blame again. It was Bush who didn't put restrictions on the money that they recklessly doled out."

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the President, the power to spend and tax. Thus, every dollar of spending allocated from the national treasury requires congressional approval and oversight. You, and millions of other Americans, should really learn about how the government actually operates. Maybe then people would pay attention as to how their elected officals screw them.

MissAmericanPie

Don't forget the ubiquitous hate mongering too.

I heard on the radio this morning that if the government attempt to abrogate these contracts to pay bonuses to employees, that the employees could sue. And, IIRC, AIG is based in Connecticut where if you sue and win this sort of case, you get DOUBLE what you were originally going to get PLUS attorney fees.

The government cannot simply abbrogate contracts. THAT is the outrage here - that the Obama administration apparently genuinely believes they are above the law.

@Kiris - I agree wholeheartedly!

An excellent rant Kevin! What I find amazing about the AIG hearings is that Congress sits in judgment on a matter of fiduciary responsibility. Isn't that like having a bank robber preside over the trial of a petty larcenist?

Anthony - With comments like that you are bucking for knighthood. Excellent analogy!

Soon we will have knights of the roundtable, along with a few damsels. There are folks in consideration for Knights and Ladies! Stay tuned...

reed311

These types are submissions are like The Twilight Zone. It's as if there wasn't a previous President before Obama that enacted hundreds of different policies and ignored countless warnings about the state of the economy. It's just as if *poof*, Obama became President one day and everything that happened before him didn't actually occur.

You are misplacing your anger. You need to be angry at the people who were in power as this actually occurred. We are in the aftermath/cleanup stage at this point. It would have been MUCH easier to fix things if we were able to prevent them before the domino-effect occurred. Bush was the person in power as this was all going down. His administration authored the first stimulus bill and offered the rebate checks which did little to jump start the economy; as it was too late. Part of being a great leader is recognizing and fixing a problem before the shit hits the fan. Bush was a reactionary leader. He only would only attempt to fix a problem after the shit hit the fan. Such as ignoring terrorism before 9/11 and his incredibly slow response to Katrina.

bluto36

so i guess the bush plea to fix fannie and freddy two years before it went belly up doesn't count? i guess barney frank telling the media that bush was wrong and that everything was just peachy doesn't count? both sides F'ed this up, both sides did everything they could to screw the financial pooch. Obama came in and made it worse.

bluto - way to tear into the liberal butt!

Ferretman

Obama voters - sorry yet?

Ferretman - 'Nuff said! LMBO