Obama Supporters Deserve The Money
Feb 12, 2010 Political
Barack Obama and his Democrats took over where George Bush left off and bailed out banks and other financial institutions to the tune of billions of dollars. These entities were “too big to fail” and were spared the consequences of their bad decisions, decisions fueled by greed. Fueled by greed and knowledge that they would be bailed out if they made bad mistakes.
The financial giants reap huge rewards when they make investments and then get taxpayer money to save them when they gamble and lose. Ann Coulter has a great piece this week laying this all out. In it she describes what happened with regard to Goldman Sachs and other institutions that packaged bad loans and then insured them through AIG which could not cover the losses. Taxpayers bailed out AIG which was the same as bailing out Goldman.
During all of this, Obama went on the blame the bankers tour and discussed the greedy guys and how their salaries needed to be capped. There were tours by the homes of AIG executives, Congress worked on legislation taxing bonuses at 90% and the citizens of America were worked into a frenzy over the greedy bankers.
But these people helped put Obama in office. Obama received huge sums of money from the financial industry and they have been friends of the Democrats for a long time (as Coulter points out, Clinton bailed them out during his presidency). So it came as no surprise this week that Obama said he did not begrudge the bonuses of savvy bankers (particularly the ones who are his supporters):
Whatever Obama has in mind for punishing the financial industry, I promise you, he won’t punish his friends. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon took a $17 million bonus this week, and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein got a $9 million bonus, Obama said he didn’t begrudge them their bonuses, saying, “I know both those guys.” Ann Coulter Human Events
What happened to people not getting huge bonuses? What happened to Barney Frank and his desire to cap salaries and bonuses of all of them even if they took no TARP money? What happened to the outrage generated by Obama and his minions over these greedy bankers?
I have no problem with bankers (or any private business people) making huge sums of money for doing a good job and I have no problem with huge bonuses. I did not have trouble with the AIG bonuses particularly because the Obama administration knew about them and people worked for a dollar a year in salary on the promise of the bonuses (which the administration then reneged on). I also have no problem with a business failing if it can’t make money and that includes financial giants and auto makers. If they can’t cut it then they can fail.
However, I am not the one who ran around whipping the country into a frenzy over greedy bankers. How dare Obama call these people greedy and rail against them last year and then step up to defend their huge bonuses this year? How can he do this and remain consistent?
He can’t, but he does not have to. If he says it is good his base will blindly follow. They will ignore Obama’s words and deeds of the past and focus on what the messiah says now. They will not draw the connection between Obama and the campaign dollars he gets from these people.
When Obama said he knows these people he meant the bankers but it could apply to his base.
Interestingly, David Reilly at Bloomberg has a piece that basically says Obama needs to man up and knock a few heads to show people who is in charge (note to Reilly, coequal means that he is not in charge of Congress). He writes about several issues which are better saved for another time but he does address financial regulation. Reilly spells out a number of tactics that Obama can use to threaten the banking industry into submission. The tactics look like something one would expect from Tony Soprano and not the leader of the US but Reilly is encouraging the kinds of tactics the left would scream fascist or Nazi over if a Republican did them.
The government owes the private sector about 7 trillion dollars. Suppose the banks called those markers all at once? Suppose the banks stopped lending for a week. I imagine if they tried hard they could send the economy in the Great Depression range so perhaps the mafia style tactics would be a poor idea.
Then again, Reilly is like typical supporters who decry strong-arm politics when Republicans use them but espouse them in order to push the Democrat agenda. This is typical of the left and we see it in Congress whenever they are in charge. We can’t knock heads of terrorists or it is torture but we can do what we want to those who oppose us…
I think the hypocrisy of Obma has been exposed in the past and it is very clear in his latest support of the huge bonuses. I also think we have a number of leftists in the media calling for him to get tough because they are worried about a Palin presidency.
Whether she will run or not or could even win is not the point.
Just the idea of that drives liberals and the progressives nuts.
And that is a joy to see.
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Tags: aig, ann coulter, bailout, bonuses, goldman, hypocrisy, Obama, savvy
Ironies And Gall Surround Obama
Mar 26, 2009 Political
It is interesting to watch the MEssiah as he goes about his business because he is a complete contradiction to what he presented during the campaign. I believe that if he had discussed all this spending and had actually said what he was going to do he would never have won. The guy is hailed as a gifted speaker but as soon as he is away from a teleprompter he stutters and stammers and sounds like the years of drug abuse affected the speech center of his brain.
I think it is like watching a folly and it would be rather amusing if it were not so potentially fatal. His policies and his aggressive, steamrolling tactics are sending us down the path to hell.
Look at the irony of Obama and his cronies coming after those who don’t pay their taxes. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal report that Obama is putting together a panel to overhaul the tax system so that they can get the 300 billion dollars that is not paid as it should be. Does it strike anyone as ironic that this statement is made?
“There are hundreds of billions of dollars in uncollected taxes each year,” Orszag said in a conference call. The Volcker board “will be examining ways of being even more aggressive on reducing the tax gap.” [Bloomberg]
The irony is that Tim Geithner was not the one who made the statement, Orszag was. Is it because Geithner was one of the tax cheats the overhaul is looking to detect? How ironic is it that Obama wants to go after tax cheats when the guy he picked to run Treasury is a tax cheat? How ironic is it that Charlie Rangel is a major tax cheat and is not being aggressively investigated? Obama wants new rules to crack down on YOU while the Democrats are full of tax cheats. How many of this guy’s picks had to bow out because of some tax problem?
It is amazing. It is like having a doctor who smokes tell you to give up cigarettes because they are bad for you or your pastor telling you to be faithful to your swife while he is having an affair. It is just wrong, it is hypocritical, and it is unmitigated gall.
I believe everyone should pay their fair share of taxes but I think members of government should be beyond reproach and this bunch is anything but.
Look at Obama’s press conference last night. I told you this guy would continue to blame Bush for as long as he could. It is interesting that he continues to blame Bush for the bad stuff but takes credit for the good stuff. If something good happens in Iraq we never hear Obama say that George Bush is responsible.
No, instead Obama will go on national TV and LIE. He said he inherited a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit. That is an absolute lie. Forgetting for a moment that Congress controls the purse strings, let’s look at the deficit numbers. At Gateway Pundit there is a chart that shows the deficit under Bush was slightly over 400 billion dollars at its highest point. The projected deficits for Obama are over a trillion dollars for the first two years and never drop below about 600 billion. The projection out to 2019 is just as bleak.
The numbers are only public debt and don’t include government to government debt or the numbers for everyone are enormous. Obama was lying when he said what he did or he was using a different set of numbers in order to make his case. The information comes from the Heritage Foundation and they report that Obama has quadrupled the debt with his stimulus package.
Obama also defended his reduction of the charitable contribution tax deductions for wealthier Americans saying that it would not lead to less money being donated basing this on some kind of evidence. I don’t really know what plant he hails from but on Earth the opposite has been demonstrated. As pointed out at Just One Minute (from a 2005 analysis):
The authors compile and contrast the results of a vast number of studies looking at the interplay of tax rates and charitable giving. Although people have many motivations for their philanthropy the conclusion of almost all of these studies points in the same direction – on net people give less when it costs them more.
Maybe on Krypton that is not a problem but on Earth people, even those who are very charitable, don’t give as much if it will cost them more. The Obama plan is a disincentive to give but then again, why would a liberal understand charity? It isn’t like they actually give much…
Finally, the lynch mob has taken its toll on one AIG executive. The New York Times published the letter of resignation of Jake DeSantis. Be sure to read his entire letter. The guy worked for a $1 a year based on the bonus that AIG was legally obligated to pay. Now Congress wants to take 90% of it as a punishment for a guy who had nothing to do with the problems and who stayed on to help.
I see more of these coming. In the end AIG will fail and we will be on the hook for billions of dollars. If we had let them fail in September we could have saved that money.
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Tags: aig, charity, Democrats, failure, geithner, irony, Obama, rangel, tax cheats, tax law
Nationalized Socialism Is Obama’s Goal
Mar 21, 2009 Political
It is no secret to people who are not infected with Obamaitis that he is a radical who has studied Saul Alinsky and that he wants to make this country a Socialist haven. He has already worked toward that and his grand plans include socializing health care and confiscating wealth from the affluent and giving it to the less affluent. His toadies are also working on back door gun bans to run around the Second Amendment. Top it off with the re-imposition of slavery in this country and it is not hard to see we are heading in the wrong direction.
Recently, the government demonstrated its intentions by using the tax policies to negate legal contracts and to punish those who received money to which they were entitled. The punitive taxes are being implemented because Congress failed in its duties. They are punishing people in order to cover the mistakes they made and that Obama allowed. This is how government will handle laws it does not like. Unfortunately, this will probably stand because the courts do not like to get involved in tax legislation.
I know there are many who are happy about this but they ignore the rule of law in their delight. But, but, Congress is only taking care of the mess that these companies made. These companies got taxpayer money so we Congress can make sure they act right.
[note]Thought to ponder: Barney Frank said the US owned part of AIG so it was OK to negate legal contracts. Why has he not advocated for negating the autoworker union contracts? We gave them money as well.[/note]
I know, people believe that Congress has every right to get involved in businesses that taxpayer money has gone to (even though some companies were forced to take the money) but now Obama wants to go after all executive pay regardless of whether the companies received a bailout or not. Drudge is reporting that a Sunday New York Times piece will report that:
Obama will call for increased oversight of ‘executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies’ as part of sweeping plan to ‘overhaul financial regulation’, NY TIMES reporting Sunday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE…
What gives Obama the right to decide executive pay in any company? What gives him the right to decide how much money an individual is allowed to make?
Nothing in our system of government does but Obama does not like our system of government. He wants us to be a Socialist nation where government decides what people do and how much they make. He wants to take wealth and move it in a downward direction rather than encourage people to make money and move upward.
Maybe a few things can happen to derail this phony leader and his gang of Socialist conspirators. First of all, companies that did not get bailout money should tell the administration they WILL NOT cap pay or bonuses and that as long as they make money they will decide how to spend it. All companies (whether they got bailout money or not) should stop ALL political donations. If they employ lobbyists then they should fire them. Not one dime should come from anywhere in the financial district. That would reduce the amount of money going to politicians by millions. I also wonder how it would screw things up if all the folks at AIG who received bonuses donated enough of it to charity to offset the punitive taxes imposed by Congress. I would donate 100% of it to charity before I paid 90% in taxes on it.
Congress and the usurper in the White House are out of control. They are going balls to the walls in order to steamroll this country. They want Socialism and they are working very hard to get it. I read a quote that Socialism works until you run out of other people’s money. We are already spending the money of future generations. When will the madness stop?
I asked earlier why the Democrats are not going after union contracts the way they did the AIG contracts. They want more union people in this country and they are working hard to get all the workers unionized through card check and through fast track amnesty plans for illegals. They want nationalized socialism with workers who do the bidding of their charismatic leader.
They called George Bush the Nazi and compared him to Hitler but Obama is more closely aligned with those items. If we do not oppose him now it will not be long before brown shirted Obama Nazis will be marching in our streets.
What do you think a national civilian security force is for? Here is a hint: It is not to stop people from outside our borders. That only leaves those within…
Join the resistance.
Wake up America.
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Tags: aig, bonus, confiscation, nazi, Obama, socialist, taxes, wealth
Obama Untruthful About Bonuses; Frank To Endanger AIG Employees
Mar 19, 2009 Political
Barack Obama and his lackeys have been running around screaming about the perfectly legal bonuses that some AIG employees received. I understand the uproar but the politicians have created an atmosphere of hatred and it is getting dangerous. Employees of AIG have been threatened as have their families and this is all because of the frenzy whipped up by the administration and the members of Congress who actually allowed the bonuses to happen.
Today the CEO of AIG was being grilled by Congress and limp wristed Barney Rubble, I mean Frank asked for the names of the employees who had received bonuses. Mr. Liddy said he would not give them unless he could be assured they would not be made public and Frank said he would make no such promise and that he would issue a subpoena for the names if he had to. Then Liddy read some of the hate mail that had been received including one that said the employees and their families should be strung up by piano wire. Frank said that he thought that it was just talk and he wanted the names.
No one treats it as just talk when people make any statement about Obama that in any way can be interpreted as a threat. I am willing to bet that if letters and emails started arriving at Frank’s office saying that he should be killed he would have protection and he would have investigations to find out who it is. And if there is anyone who should be strung up by piano wire it is that light in the loafers jackass. Frank seems not to care too much about the employees and their families.
If he releases the names and anything happens to those people Frank should be executed immediately. However, it is unlikely he would be held accountable for his actions. He is a major reason we had the economic collapse and he is still in office.
As for Obama, he is playing fast and loose with the facts. He claims that he only learned of the bonuses last week but a number of media outlets are reporting that he was aware of them before he took office. A number of people in government, many who are now feigning righteous indignation, knew about this months ago. It was not until the story enraged the public that most became upset.
The AP reports, via Yahoo News:
While administration officials insisted Tuesday that neither Obama nor Geithner learned of the impending bonus payments until last week, the problem wasn’t new. AIG’s plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars were publicized last fall, when Congress started asking questions about expensive junkets the company had sponsored. A November SEC filing by the company details more than $469 million in “retention payments” to keep prized employees.
Back then, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., began pumping Liddy for information on the bonuses and pressing him to scale them back. “There was outrage brewing already,” Cummings said. “I’m saying (to Liddy), ‘Be a good citizen. … Do something about this.’ ”
Around the same time, outside lawyers hired by the Federal Reserve started reviewing the bonuses as part of a broader look at retention and compensation plans, according to government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The outside attorneys examined the possibility of making changes to the company plans — scaling them back, delaying them or rescinding them. They ultimately concluded that even if AIG’s bonuses were withheld, the company would probably be sued successfully by its employees and be forced to pay them, the officials said.
Obama had to know about this or he is even more incompetent than I thought. All his players knew about it and it was part of SEC filings. The article goes on to explain how there were a number of discussions about how to stop it and that when the stimulus bill was being crafted they passed up a chance to stop the bonuses and instead inserted a Dodd amendment that allowed them. Dodd initially denied he added the amendment but today fessed up and said he was responsible for the loophole that allowed the bonuses to be paid. It looks like the Democrats are losing even more credibility by the minute.
Obama’s time line does not square with what is being reported. Like I said, he had to have known or he is completely incompetent. I think it is both but if he continues to deny knowing then he is admitting that he does not know what is going on and that is a sign of an incompetent “leader.”
Then again, he showed that he was incompetent when he signed a bill he did not read.
Obama is not getting a honeymoon period because he and his minions have used most of his political capital. The only people who are steadfastly sticking to him are the toadies who worship the ground he walks on.
Most others are starting to wake up and, like the hungover college kid who awakens next to an ugly woman, ask themselves what did I do?
Obama gets caught in a lie just about every week. He is caught breaking campaign promises just about every week and he is using the fabricated crisis to push through things that would never pass muster during times of tranquility.
One thing is certain and that is Obama and his toadies knew about the bonuses and they made them possible by adding amendments to bills and signing things that were never read.
It is a piss poor way to run a country if you ask me.
Related:
Shep Smith at Fox goes off on Congress and the Administration.
Barney Frank defended Fannie and Freddie while they were sinking but making Democrats rich and now it looks like they will be paying bonuses. Will Congress go after them as well? Stay tuned…
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Tags: aig, barney frank, bonuses, Congress, dodd, fox, lies, murder, Obama, shep smith
Obama And Dodd Are To Blame For AIG Mess
Mar 18, 2009 Political
There is a big uproar about the retention bonuses that were paid to AIG employees after the company received over 170 billion dollars of bailout money. There are a lot of players involved but Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd are the primary culprits in this mess. More on that later.
The idea of bailing out AIG or any other company did not appeal to me and I was against it from the start. There are many people who felt that we had to bail the companies out to keep the economic foundation from collapsing. To you folks who wanted this, you got what you deserved.
The government, that is the taxpayer, should not be bailing out companies. They make it on their own or they fail and someone else takes over. By allowing government intervention we have opened a Pandora’s Box. All that happens as a result of the government sticking its nose where it does not belong is that things get even more screwed up. Very few of the people in Congress have any experience actually running a business so this, coupled with the speed with which the first bailout was passed, was a recipe for disaster and a disaster it was. The people in Congress (along with the Bush administration) who wrote the bailout bill failed to provide oversight and they failed to ensure that there were strict guidelines as to how the money could be spent.
The Obama administration took over and he asked for more money to be released. He also, with reckless abandon, pushed a bill through that he dubbed a stimulus plan. That plan was absolutely needed and if it was not passed the world would come to an end, or at least this is how Obama presented it.
This is where Obama and Dodd assumed the liability for the mess. AIG employees were not paid bonuses because the issue was not addressed. They were paid bonuses because it was addressed and Dodd made sure they could get paid. Dodd added an amendment to the stimulus bill that specifically allowed the bonuses to be paid. The members of Congress were well aware of the bonuses that were due and they were aware last year when all this was being worked on. They ignored that issue until Dodd put these words in the bill:
Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation:
Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.For institutions that received assistance totaling less than $25 million, the bonus restriction applies to the highest compensated employee; $25 million to $250 million, applies to the top five employees; $250 million to $500 million, applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 10 employees; and more than $500 million applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 20 employees (or such higher number as the Secretary determines is in the public interest). Fox Business (includes graphs showing who AIG donated money to. Now you know why Dodd added the amendment) [emphasis mine]
Dodd’s amendment allowed the bonuses to be paid. Let me write that again; Dodd added an amendment that allowed the bonuses to be paid.
Certainly the amendment had to be voted on so there is no excuse for people not to know that the bonuses were going to be paid. Obama pushed this bill through at light worker speed. The bill was over a thousand pages long and no one had time to read it before it was voted upon. Obama did not read it before he signed it. So what we have is a trail of incompetence.
Senator Dodd is now trying to get the money back. He suggested heavily taxing the money and that moron Chuck Schumer stated today that the new CEO of AIG had better convince the employees to return the bonuses or Congress was going to tax nearly 100% of it to ensure it got back to where it belongs “in the hands of the taxpayer.”
First of all, it will never get to our hands. Congress will spend it on something else. Second of all, why all this phony concern for taxpayers now? They had no concern for us when they passed the trillion dollar, pork laden, spending bill and they had no concern for us when they passed the omnibus and its 9000 items of pork. Why the righteous indignation now? And who does Dodd think he is to vocally oppose this when he added the amendment that allowed it to happen?
Obama and Dodd as well as all the other screamers (like Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer) are trying to cover up the fact that they screwed this up royally. They are now using the power of Congress to punish people who only got that to which they were entitled by virtue of a contract and a bill signed into law by Obama.
I don’t like the idea that AIG got the money and I don’t like the idea that these issues were not addressed when the original bailout was written and that they were not addressed correctly when the pork filled stimulus was crafted. But, the fact is, under the law, the people who received bonuses are entitled to them.
Another fact is that Obama, Dodd and the others are trying to put this on AIG when these morons knew this was going to happen. When the news broke and people started complaining these so called leaders all of the sudden acted like this was a shock to them. They acted like it was irresponsible and an affront to taxpayers when they all knew about it and they codified it; Dodd with the amendment, members for voting on it, and Obama for signing it.
Another thing to address is whether Congress can make a law that specifically taxes specific employees in one particular company. Does Congress have the authority to write a law that says that a certain group of people in a certain company must pay 90 or 100% tax on a specific bonus? I would imagine that this would be an issue for the Supreme Court to decide under the issue of equal protection.
If Congress can do this then what would stop them from deciding that that a certain job class or certain workers in other companies made too much money and then pass laws taking as much of that income as they wanted? This is a very important issue and it gets at the heart of just how much power Congress actually has.
If they screw these workers out of their bonuses (sorry folks but no matter how you feel about it, they are entitled to them) then they could be asking for trouble. Congress sunk 170 billion dollars in AIG because if AIG fails then the economy will follow it, at least according to those who pushed the bailout. What would stop AIG from saying screw it and closing its doors. What would stop them from just shutting down and causing turmoil? The government owns about 80% of the company now but the government can’t run it.
Speaking of owning 80% of the company, the entire issue shows just how wrong it was to bail them out in the first place. Government said they were buying up shares in companies in order to help them get back on their feet. We were told they had no interest in nationalizing these companies (at least no more than short term) and that government had no interest in controlling them.
Today Barney Frank said that we [the government] own 80% of the company and that it was time to exercise ownership and stop the bonuses from happening. This is nothing more than a push closer to socialism. Government tells you how much you can make and how much you have to give back. Government takes control of companies and decides what employees can or cannot do regardless of contractual obligations. Government erodes the freedoms that people enjoy and soon instead of building wealth government ensures that all of us are equally poor.
Those who voted for Obama, this is what you voted for. Those who wanted the bailouts, this is what you asked for. You have no right to complain and you have no right to be upset about what is taking place because you wanted this to happen.
As for those of you that are threatening the lives of AIG workers and directing your anger at them; you are wrong. Your anger should be directed at Obama and Dodd and everyone else who voted for the stumulus package. Dodd added the wording and Obama signed it into law. THEY KNEW ALL ABOUT IT FOR QUITE SOME TIME AND THEY ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN.
Direct your anger at Congress and at Obama. They deserve your wrath.
As an aside, this is the second time not reading a bill has caused embarrassment. Obama issued an EO allowing federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and then signed the omnibus which specifically forbade using federal money to pay for it. He also signed the stimulus allowing the AIG employees to receive their bonuses.
One final point. If there are other companies with employees who had contracts for bonuses then they will be entitled as well. Dodd’s amendment was not specific to any company.
This is what happens when inexperienced, incompetent, self serving people run things. They gave us the financial meltdown and now this.
We need a do over. Let’s get rid of everyone in Congress and the Administration and replace them with competent folks.
**The Obama administration is claiming that it only found out about the bonuses a month ago despite media claims to the contrary. The bonus issue was known for quite some time by members of COngress and probably Geithner. Dodd certainly knew. He would have to know so he could take care of those who have contributed so much money to his campaign.
***Obama received 100 thousand dollars in donations from AIG
Also:
NewsMax
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Tags: aig, bailout, barney frank, contract, dodd, law, Obama, schumer, taxes