Washington knew AIG was preparing to pay bonuses

[Guest NewsBot]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Cue the outrage. For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back....

 

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

 

More...

[ImWithStupid]

Of course they frakkin' knew.

 

Timmy "Turbo Tax" Geithner set up the AIG bailout last fall, and the Dems in Congress wrote the TARP II bill that said any bonus that was signed into contract prior to February 11th, would be valid and honored.

 

Stop, the fake surprise, you bunch of lying bastards!!!

[phreakwars]

Been listening to Fox and Rush again I see.

 

Media Matters - Fox, Drudge falsely assert Dodd put "bonus protections" into stimulus bill

 

Debunked.

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[ImWithStupid]

Been listening to Fox and Rush again I see.

 

Media Matters - Fox, Drudge falsely assert Dodd put "bonus protections" into stimulus bill

 

Debunked.

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I saw a video clip of Dodd saying that he tried to do so, but the amendment was so watered down by time the bill passed it wasn't effective.

 

Everything out there besides, media matters is saying otherwise.

 

Show me proof.

[phreakwars]

Show me the clip

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[ImWithStupid]

Show me the clip

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I saw it on tv. You called my statement false. Prove it.

[phreakwars]

I'd say your the one who needs to show proof. Surely it must be on youtube.

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[ImWithStupid]

I'd say your the one who needs to show proof. Surely it must be on youtube.

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Sorry.

 

I made a statement that is all over the net. You claimed it false, citing only the far left media matters as the source. You haven't proved anything.

 

Once you give independent proof to your claim, I'll take the effort to address your request.

[ImWithStupid]

It all still comes back to Geithner, who designed the plan to bail out AIG instead of letting them go into bankruptcy court where these contracts could have been negotiated.

 

The current administration along with those in Congress, both R's and D's should have known that these bonuses were to be paid out as it was made known to the current administration a month ago.

 

The fake, surprise, just does to show that all they care about is show not substance.

[ImWithStupid]

I'm still waiting for a response.

 

If Media Matters was right, and the Dodd amendment was as they say it is, why would Congress have to resort to threatening wright an entirely new law to tax the money back?

 

The answer...

 

Media Matters is full of crap and they wouldn't.

[phreakwars]

Something you should be asking of your boy Bush when the deal was made on his watch. Remember??

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[phreakwars]

See this piece yet?

 

The real scandal at AIG is the not the bonuses. It's the payments to counterparties. - By Eliot Spitzer - Slate Magazine

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[ImWithStupid]

Something you should be asking of your boy Bush when the deal was made on his watch. Remember??

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Wrong again. The AIG deal was made by Geithner and he and the NY Times bragged about it after Obama made him Treasury Secretary and the bonuses in the contracts were long before the first TARP. That means Geithner knew the bonuses were there before making the deals with AIG.

 

From the NY Times...

Where Was Geithner in Turmoil?

 

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

 

Published: November 24, 2008

 

President-elect Barack Obama unveiled on Monday an economic team with deep experience handling economic crises. But does the man at the center of this star-studded cast, Timothy F. Geithner, the nominee for Treasury secretary, have what is needed to take the nation in a new financial direction?

 

That is what a number of Wall Street chieftains are quietly asking, even after the stock market surged with relief after his nomination.

 

One reason Mr. Obama gave for nominating Mr. Geithner was his ?unparalleled understanding of our current economic crisis, in all of its depth, complexity and urgency.? More important, he suggested, ?Tim will waste no time getting up to speed. He will start his first day on the job with a unique insight into the failures of today?s markets ? and a clear vision of the steps we must take to revive them.?

Mr. Geithner is clearly a 47-year-old wonder boy.

 

A graduate of Dartmouth, he has a master?s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, did a turn with Henry Kissinger?s consulting firm, a stint in the Clinton administration and, for the last five years, has been the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

 

He will effectively lead the team Mr. Obama has chosen to mend a crippled economy. That?s important because they won?t just be debating economic theory ? they will be making deals Wall Street-style, negotiating billion-dollar bailouts and restructuring entire industries on behalf of their client, the taxpayers.

 

But Mr. Geithner?s involvement in several ultimately ill-fated efforts to buttress the American financial system is the very reason some Wall Street C.E.O.?s ? a number of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of piquing the man who regulates them ? question whether he?s up to the challenge.

 

?We have only two things to say about Tim Geithner, who we do not know: A.I.G. and Lehman Brothers,? said Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics. ?Throw in the Bear Stearns/Maiden Lane fiasco for good measure,? he said.

 

?All of these ?rescues? are a disaster for the taxpayer, for the financial markets and also for the Federal Reserve System as an organization. Geithner, in our view, deserves retirement, not promotion.?

Ouch.

 

?He was in the room at every turn of the crisis,? said another executive who participated in several such confidential meetings with Mr. Geithner. ?You can look at that both ways.?

 

While Henry M. Paulson Jr., the current Treasury secretary, has taken a drubbing for the changeable nature of the government?s efforts to bolster the financial industry ? some of which clearly contradicted each other ? Mr. Geithner has managed, for the most part, to remain unscathed. He?s been widely praised as a bright, articulate out-of-the box thinker who is a bailout expert, to the extent anyone can truly be an expert at fast-changing emergencies.

 

Behind the scenes, Mr. Geithner was the point person for weeks of sleep-deprived Bailout Weekends. It was Mr. Geithner, not Mr. Paulson, for example, who put together the original rescue plan for the American International Group.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/business/25sorkin.html?_r=1&ref=business

 

 

Must be that vast, right wing conspiracy at the NY Times. Maybe it was the fact that they wanted to defend Geithner as a tax cheat head of the IRS because they suck liberal cokk.

[phreakwars]

It's not a party line thing, it's a corporation thing, guess you just don't understand that. I doubt we will ever get to the REAL REAL truth about this. I say it goes deeper then companies conspiring with each other, it's more then likely D's AND R's both sucking people off to rip off the American people... you know.... CAPITALISM... it isn't a G.O.P. exclusive trait you know.

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[phreakwars]

To add to that, I don't dislike the republican party, I dislike the fundamentalists and the capitalists. All the rest are OK.

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[snafu]

I think they all knew. Anbody with a lawyer degree knew. Which one of those on capitol hill didn't know that CEO's had a contract with bonus stipulations in them? These contracts were made years ago but Obama pushed these packages down our throats. What happened to transparency? What happened to five days being be able review and vote on ? They knew they couldn't stop it easily because that would have to breach their contracts. Or you could cut the crises bull and let people read, review and vote properly on a properly writtin bill if in fact that is the fix.

[phreakwars]

[attach=full]2284[/attach]

[ImWithStupid]

It's not a party line thing, it's a corporation thing, guess you just don't understand that. I doubt we will ever get to the REAL REAL truth about this. I say it goes deeper then companies conspiring with each other, it's more then likely D's AND R's both sucking people off to rip off the American people... you know.... CAPITALISM... it isn't a G.O.P. exclusive trait you know.

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So you still can't prove your far left point made by media matters but want to support the appointment of an obviously incompetent person as Treasury Secretary, for the sake of towing the party line, while at the same time trying to claim to not be partisan?

 

Gotta throw the BS flag.

 

To sum up your position, you are a left wing, Democrat supporting, classist, socialist and if one takes your overall responses into effect, nothing else you say will change that.

 

You only hear what you want to hear. I've proven over and over how the current administration will be increasing taxes on everyone, in acts just as simple as letting the Bush tax cuts expire and you continue to keep the blinders on.

 

I won't even try to continue to help the voluntary blind see.

 

Good luck.

[RoyalOrleans]

A lot of what we're seeing here is the anti-capitalist, pro-government left seeing an opportunity to demonize the private sector. The same politicians who are so adept at getting the public whipped into a frenzy over these bonuses seem somehow unable to gin up any degree of outrage over taxpayer money being spent on lobster sex and tattoo removal. At least there's a chance AIG is going to pay the money back. Let's see if some gang-banger gone straight offers up the money spent to remove his tats.

[phreakwars]

Tattoo removal? You'll have to show me the line in the stimulus plan where that was added in or check snopes.

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[RoyalOrleans]

Tattoo removal? You'll have to show me the line in the stimulus plan where that was added in or check snopes.

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Check out page 283...

 

http://docs.house.gov/rules/omni/jes/divbjes_111_hromni2009_jes.pdf

[phreakwars]

That really doesn't look like the stimulus plan ya know.

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[RoyalOrleans]

That really doesn't look like the stimulus plan ya know.

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Stimulus plan sounds better than "bullsh!t plan".

[Old Salt]

The CEO of AIG is testifying before Congress today. Should be an interesting watch as the Congressmen and women try to cover their azzes.

[ImWithStupid]

Been listening to Fox and Rush again I see.

 

Media Matters - Fox, Drudge falsely assert Dodd put "bonus protections" into stimulus bill

 

Debunked.

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Media matters is full of crap.

 

Dodd facing fresh political firestorm

 

 

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) looks like he may be facing a fresh political firestorm.

Dodd just admitted on CNN that he inserted a loophole in the stimulus legislation that allowed million-dollar bonuses to insurance giant AIG to go forward – after previously denying any involvement in writing the controversial provision. .

“We wrote the language in the bill, the deal with bonuses, golden parachutes, excessive executive compensation that was adopted unanimously by the United States Senate in the stimulus bill,” Dodd told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this afternoon.

“But for that language, there would have been no language to deal with this at all.”

Dodd facing fresh political firestorm

 

Debunked!

 

He also lied in that last line I posted. They took out a bipartisan amendment to put in Dodd's amendment.

 

 

Analysis: White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG

 

Analysis: AIG bonuses have Democrats reeling, unable to blame Bush; Republicans go on offense

 

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., won passage of a provision earlier this year that they said would have prevented the type of payments now at the center of a storm.

It was dropped without explanation in the final compromise on the economic stimulus measure, replaced by a less restrictive set of conditions backed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and accepted by the White House.

Analysis: White House, Dems backpedaling on AIG - Yahoo! Finance

 

 

The Dumocrats screwed up on this one. I hear that because of this Dodd amendment Freddy and Fannie are going to pay out bonuses too. Funny how Congress and the Administration have known about these bonuses since November, and still put this in that would allow the bonuses to be paid. I'm sure the fact that Obama and Dodd are some of the people who recieved hundreds of thousands in campaign money from AIG, Freddy and Fannie have nothing to do with it.