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CNN poll...

Would you support a special tax on AIG executives to recoup bonus money paid to them?
Yes 83% 171886
No 17% 36022

Does anyone else find this damn scary that 83% of respondents would support a tax.. talked about as high as 90%... to essentially get around the law...

this is one hell of a pandora's box if you ask me... but i couldn't bring myself to vote either way...

kiryan wrote:CNN poll...

Would you support a special tax on AIG executives to recoup bonus money paid to them?
Yes 83% 171886
No 17% 36022

Does anyone else find this damn scary that 83% of respondents would support a tax.. talked about as high as 90%... to essentially get around the law...

this is one hell of a pandora's box if you ask me... but i couldn't bring myself to vote either way...

I don't find it scary at all. I would find it scary if 83% of people found it ok for AIG to fuck taxpayers out of money because they have too large of a control share in the economy of the world to let them get fucked. Furthermore, I think it would be damn stupid to allow the people in charge to get even a fucking dime of that bailout money when it was their fault they needed the bailout in the first place. Quite honestly, I think that such a travesty is more than enough proof that God is nothing more than figment of your imagination.

I would be pretty scared if they start targeting specific people with extra taxes. I am pretty disgusted that so many people would support this.

Perhaps after this they can enact a Larry Flynt tax. Or maybe a Steven Spielberg tax. Hell, maybe there should be an extra tax on all members of the New York Yankees.

aren't they basically circumventing law... they were told there is no legal avenue to kill the bonuses, so instead they will tax the living shit out of it? i mean yes they make the law, but this application is literally making it up as you go. we might as well be venezuela, china, russia... those with political power can do whatever they want.

Thats not scary? the ends justify the means?

It would be an ex-post facto law, which is unconstitutional in the criminal context. I suppose it would be permissible here, but really its outside the scope of what I know very well.

Here is an article on the subject. I don't have the patience to read it, but it seems like the guy knows what he is talking about.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj15n2-3-4.html

Wreck Company, Earn Bonus. (comedy)

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/flowchart/2 ... bonus.html

This may be the alcohol talking, but can't we just take everyone in charge of every company who fucked up and fire them?

For that matter, why aren't the shareholders demanding an entirely new management team? Or are they just selling the shares and abandoning the company altogether...

Yeah, guess they would... no sense of pride or ownership, only the quest for the almighty dollar.

I'm starting to forget why I used to hate Eliot Spitzer so much. As a politician he was the ultimate pandering jerk. His Slate magazine columns, however, usually seem to make perfect sense. He identifies the real scandal with AIG: its counterparties were made whole at taxpayer expense. Nobody gave a shit about AIG. The Bush administration just didn't want Goldman Sachs to take it on the chin.

http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/

Corth wrote:I'm starting to forget why I used to hate Eliot Spitzer so much.

You were jealous you couldn't afford $1500 hookers?

Hah. You peaking into my bank account?! Maybe i'm jealous I don't have the cajones to hire a $1,500 hooker. :)

165 million.. a small price for AIG exec's to pay, in order to get the 12 billion they have funneled to foreign banks off the front page and out of the collective psyche. Its a coup, really.

And 12 billion is a pittance when held up to the TRILLIONS that have been taken from your grandchildren and their children by the Fed.

Seriously, why is everybody all "in a huff" about this story? People should be absolutely gridlocking congress, the senate, Washington, and Wall Street with protests over the bigger picture.

Taxing those exec's is a joke. They should be in prison. Today. And they are just the small fish, those guys. Scapegoats, really. The big fish, their crimes constitute high treason against the People of the United States of America and a criminal contempt for the Constitution. We hang people for high treason, for good reason. Or did you all forget that America is at "war?"

I wouldn't support a targeted tax like that, because it opens the door for far too many abuses of power, and it irks me that the American public just jumps on the bandwagon like that. People are wanting to take their frustrations out on the people who said "Let them eat cake," and AIG was stupid enough to put themselves on the chopping block. They might be stupid, but there's not an official "stupid tax" yet, that I know of.

Would I be hurt if congress found another way to penalize them? Pffft, depends on how they do it, but I do hope they find a way.

So let them impose a tax on "bonus compensation" paid to executives of companies who received federal bailout money. I think that's perfectly reasonable... all you conservatives who scream about socialism, you're looking at it right here... redistributing wealth from the taxpayer right into the pockets of the upper class ;)

Get your pitchforks!

"Whats the big deal, its a tenth of 1 percent of the money we gave them for sucking."

This is like giving money to your crackhead cousin and becoming absolutely horrified when he spends your money on crack...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/18/aig.bonuses/index.html

Interesting article on this subject.

Rofl. AIG will give 160 million back to Department of Treasury to make up for the bonuses, and then ask for 70 billion more from them next week. Too big to fail! :)

i dunno... we've been talking slippery slope for the past couple years and this is downright scary to me.

that being said, there should be a lot of outrage over where the AIG money went. Can you imagine Obama getting up there and saying he's going to give foreign banks billions of dollars as part of TARP/stimulus ect?

I actually do remember someone slipping up and talking about foreign banks getting TARP money back in November... and it was quickly swept under the rug. AIG was the perfect front man to hide the fact that treasury, our federal government, was paying AIG's debts to foreign banks... and giving domestic banks more money than they were saying.

Why did we bail out AIG so it could then pay goldman sachs off allowing them to book it as profit instead of just giving goldman sachs money and demanding they pay it back?

--

its a terrible cost to put on our children and grandchildren... but to say that is a bigger outrage and problem than the trend this sets, than what this indicates about our society and the rule of law and justice... i dunno. i thought everyone understand that the ends justify the means was a bad thing.

What i want to know is what kind of deterent these idiots have from doing this kind of thing again? Whats gonna stop them from making the same mistakes over and over knowing that they'll get a hand out every time thinks start to go real bad?

Corth wrote:This is like giving money to your crackhead cousin and becoming absolutely horrified when he spends your money on crack...

No, this is like your crackhead cousin spending all his money on crack, then stealing the money out of your wallet, and then spending it on crack.

I think you guys are using too much slippery slope here. Taxing the bonuses will not end up being something that is status quo. This is a very specialized problem. That's like saying because they throw murderers in jail, they're also going to start throwing people who recieve speeding tickets in jail -- because they both broke the law. That type of argument is simply insane.

The fact of the matter is, these companies came to the government for specialized loans in order to remain solvent -- in order to remain a business. These companies were in these situations because of bad money management. When a company continues to exhibit poor money management before paying back these loans, expecially when they are horrible investments (really, these people should have resigned long ago), and especially when these companies are as important as they are to the backbone of the United States, the money should be recouped by the government who is excersizing the will of the people -- with the people's money, mind you.

I will say that the only fault of the government here is the lack of restrictions on the loans. Hindsight is 20/20, so I'm not going to fault them horribly (bush or obama), but you can not say that a restriction on bonus pay, CEO pay, and the such, would not have been a good idea to tack into the loan contracts; however, since this did not happen, I see no reason to make up for the mistakes now because. And this surely does have legal implications for future power limitations of the government, but I think a quick survey of the legal history of the US will show that the use of power does not necessarily lead to the continued use or justification of that power. To believe that this will be a tactic used to regulate businesses in the future is just rediculous. But, if the majority of the world can believe they are talking to invisible, all-powerful people, I don't expect their tin-foil hats labeled "conspiracy" to be too far from their rocking chairs and gun racks.

I agree it could be too much slippery slope. However, when has government ever givin power back? Things that used to be rare are common... look at signing statements. look at taxes... look at earmarks, look at just about everything... It all started somewhere and became used more and more as it became "acceptable". Your exception today, is the rule tomorrow.

the correct answer was bankruptcy. which is why I was proud of house republicans when they blocked TARP. The literally said, slow down, no more blank checks, we need to be able to monitor this we need to determine what the real cost is... instead, we are bailing the whole world out and propagating a system that is based on smoke and mirrors.

the moral principle to get the money back is right... but i worry when 83% of americans believe that the ends justify the means.

the whole no more blank checks was a Democratic refrain for the last 2 years, but they lined up en masse to write the same blank check they did on Afghanistan, Iraq and the patriot act.

kiryan wrote:of americans believe that the ends justify the means.

This from the guy who wants two people to live in misery together their entire lives so he can save a couple dollars on taxes...

lol thats all i have to say about that.

amena wolfsnarl wrote:What i want to know is what kind of deterent these idiots have from doing this kind of thing again? Whats gonna stop them from making the same mistakes over and over knowing that they'll get a hand out every time thinks start to go real bad?

YES! Exactly. Or better yet, what stops them from purposefully doing what they did? If it works out, great, they get zillions of dollars. If not, then the taxpayers end up holding the bag.

What you folks fail to understand is most of the folks getting the bonuses are those that created the investment vechicles, ie cds and the like. They know what is actually in those and how they are exactly made up. If you have those kind of folks leave and go to other places, they can use their knowledge to take the opposite side of trades and really cause alot of problems for AIG. AIG would need more and more money as traders broke them through pushing them deeper in the red.

This is that whole we spend money to save money thing again right?

I hope you guys realize someday that you don't save money when you spend money.

kiryan wrote:This is that whole we spend money to save money thing again right?

I hope you guys realize someday that you don't save money when you spend money.

I thought you had to spend money to make money...

Kifle wrote:

kiryan wrote:This is that whole we spend money to save money thing again right?

I hope you guys realize someday that you don't save money when you spend money.

I thought you had to spend money to make money...

Making money isn't saving it, you've earned this nice pointy hat...

I watched the Leno interview last night with Obama, and as much as I disagree with the president's stance on most major issues he sold me on the AIG stuff. He admits that they were covering their asses because of legalities, but states that they should've realized that no judge would support a lawsuit to get these people more money. I get worried about the whole legislation of morality thing, but I'm down with this one.


http://www.hulu.com/watch/63558/the-ton ... -interview

I'll also go on record to say that as much as I disagree with 90% of his major policy stances, I can't help but like Obama. This guy really knows how to be a president, and how to talk to the country.

um.....

I like Obama, he is charasmatic. Does "talking" to the American people a good president make? Communication is certainly one of the core competencies for a leader... but is Obama communicating well as a president? To the public yes... to wall street no... to the international community no... Look at the NAFTA fiasco during the primaries, look at the Russia missile shield fiasco... We have no evidence he is "talking to" Iran, although he's at least been talking at Iran.

He is completely failing at bipartisianship, but he is successfully avoiding being held accountable for the lack thereof.

You may like the guy, he may be a great leader, but he can be all that and a bad president. Time will tell, because by conventional wisdom he is heading down the wrong road and into a political quagmire and I'm starting to see scenarios where the Democrats lose in 2010 and get destroyed in 2012. Hopefully instead we will get the change he promised us.

It's difficult to be bipartisan when the right is categorically opposing all of his initiatives, often for specious reasons. I'd say Obama is doing much more to reach across the aisle than the minority party.

Newsflash: The left is doing as much if not more attacking on Geithner. The reality is we have a president and administration way over their head. That's what you get when you elect someone with no executive experience.

Anybody who tries to deal with this will find that its over their head. Its a huge unstable system, and every policy move seems to create a bunch of unforeseen consequences. Ultimately market forces will stabilize the economy and allow conditions where growth can occur again - despite the mistakes of this administration and the previous one.

Lathander wrote:Newsflash: The left is doing as much if not more attacking on Geithner. The reality is we have a president and administration way over their head. That's what you get when you misgovern for eight years and someone has to clean up a gigantic mess.

Fixed that for ya.

The point is that Presidents are held to a higher standard. They are not just your average guy. Trying doesn't (or shouldn't) count for shit on whether you are a "good president".

I agree that Obama is doing more to reach across the aisle, and the republicans are definitely not doing as much as Obama, but I think the real barrier is the democrats, congressional democrats and Pelosi in particular... I never thought I could hate a democrat more than Hillary, but Pelosi has her beat hands down.

kiryan wrote:The point is that Presidents are held to a higher standard. They are not just your average guy. Trying doesn't (or shouldn't) count for shit on whether you are a "good president".

It should unless you're primary concern is making the other party look better. The President is trying, and the Republicans aren't letting him. That doesn't mean you get to claim Obama is a bad president because he's not acting in a bipartisan manner. No matter how much you're crying about losing the election. He's doing everything Republicans are letting him.

The question is why they're putting their own politics above the welfare of our country in a manner so petty that it can't win them any favor points anyway.

Sarvis wrote:

kiryan wrote:The point is that Presidents are held to a higher standard. They are not just your average guy. Trying doesn't (or shouldn't) count for shit on whether you are a "good president".

It should unless you're primary concern is making the other party look better. The President is trying, and the Republicans aren't letting him. That doesn't mean you get to claim Obama is a bad president because he's not acting in a bipartisan manner. No matter how much you're crying about losing the election. He's doing everything Republicans are letting him.

The question is why they're putting their own politics above the welfare of our country in a manner so petty that it can't win them any favor points anyway.

Yeah but in a couple years time when everyone sees that the government hasnt really done anything cause of this, who is going to get the blame? Wont be the republicans i can tell you tha much now.
Obama will get the shaft cause its up to him to make sure something is done.

Obama touched on this issue the other night as well:

[The Republicans have] just decided 'we're going to be against whatever the other side is for.'

There's not much to be bipartisan about when Obama and his cronies in Congress are taking us down the road to socialism. Every citizen needs to stand up and let the Democrats know they weren't elected to turn us into Russia. The sad fact is they got elected because Bush really screwed it pretty good. That's the only way that Obama, Pelosi, Barney Frank and those libs got in the majority. 2010 has alot of potential to be a bounce back year though. Hell, even Arlen Spector is finding his guts and voting against the Card Check bill.

There's not much to be bipartisan about when Obama and his cronies in Congress are taking us down the road to socialism. Every citizen needs to stand up and let the Democrats know they weren't elected to turn us into Russia. The sad fact is they got elected because Bush really screwed it pretty good. That's the only way that Obama, Pelosi, Barney Frank and those libs got in the majority. 2010 has alot of potential to be a bounce back year though. Hell, even Arlen Spector is finding his guts and voting against the Card Check bill.

Socialism is the new neocon buzzword, pass it on!

Things usually become common because they are true.

Lathander wrote:Things usually become common because they are true.

Indeed. Every citizen stood up and let the Republicans know that they weren't elected to turn us into Haiti. Now is the time for you to sit down, observe how we fix your mistakes, and understand where you've been wrong for the past eight years. Your political party is completely routed. They have no leadership, they have no direction, they don't even have a firm grasp of the party stance on most of the current issues other than "oppose Obama." There is no Republican party right now, there's only the Administration and the Opposition.

And if you don't support the country, you should leave. Right? Is that how you've been telling it for the last eight years?

Either way, don't worry. Your kids will be thanking us for fixing the mess left by the atrocities of the previous administration. We'll be cleaning up their economic and diplomatic fallout for at least five years, probably longer. But we'll get it done, don't you worry.

That enough hyperbole for you?

Comedy is good late at night.

If Al Gore had created the Internet earlier, you probably would have posted the same post when Jimmy Carter won in '76. That didn't turn out so well.

You're right, that could have gone better. He opened the door for Reagan :(

Republican party needs to reinvent itself. I hope that means going back to its core of small government and non interventionism.

Obama killed McCain, but you fail to acknowledge that
1. McCain did not represent the Republican base
2. Winning a few states by 5% = an electoral route. His margin of victory was amazing, but only a small % of people needed to show up or vote the other way to have produced a dramatically different outcome.

Huckabee and Giuliani f*ked us over. Giuliani dropped out givign all the liberal votes to McCain, Huckabee stayed in splitting the conservative vote. Thats how Republicans ended up with McCain.

Obama has a mandate, I accept that. I want change; he promises it. However, I will go kicking and screaming down the path of more government and higher taxes.

kiryan wrote:Republican party needs to reinvent itself. I hope that means going back to its core of small government and non interventionism.

Obama killed McCain, but you fail to acknowledge that
1. McCain did not represent the Republican base
2. Winning a few states by 5% = an electoral route. His margin of victory was amazing, but only a small % of people needed to show up or vote the other way to have produced a dramatically different outcome.

Huckabee and Giuliani f*ked us over. Giuliani dropped out givign all the liberal votes to McCain, Huckabee stayed in splitting the conservative vote. Thats how Republicans ended up with McCain.

Obama has a mandate, I accept that. I want change; he promises it. However, I will go kicking and screaming down the path of more government and higher taxes.

I don't remember hearing any kicking and screaming when Bush added an entire department to the government...

I was not happy about homeland security. And it was a new department and a combination of existing departments reorganized under one umbrella. but yea, when he did that i was like GD here comes more government... more government employees... higher taxes (eventually). Same thing with NCLB and patriot act.

Finally some states are realizing that federal government just went on a huge power grab over the last 8 years and that they can and have a right to be more independent.