Booty Call
You're all goin' to a painful, everlasting, fiery Hell.
It's all there is. It's all there is
--Sinners, Inc, Rob Zombie
It really makes you think
there must be something wrong
--Rep. Henry Waxaman, (D-CA),
on Peanut Corp of America getting "superior" ratings
despite vermin and salmonella findings
[Nestlé's Inspectors Saw Rat Droppings]
________________
The New York Times editorial says, "After four bailouts totaling some $170 billion, the American International Group has finally answered some of the questions about where the money went" (The Gift That Keeps on Giving).
"Altogether, the disclosures account for $107.8 billion in A.I.G. bailout money. Which leaves us wondering about the rest of the money. Another $30 billion was added to the A.I.G. bailout pot this month and must be accounted for as soon as it is spent. That leaves some $32 billion unaccounted for. Where did it go?"
Sounding a lot like Deputy Dawg, where indeed. "Untangling all the entanglements is not only essential to understanding how the system became so badly broken, but also to restoring faith that government is up to the task of fixing it." But why would Congress close the barn door after the horse is out? Shouldn't the investigation have begun before the $170 Billion went trotting down the road
Everything in this bailout business is backwards. The banks are given hard-earned tax dollars to wheel and deal in the manner of their choosing. They are back at selling Lennox Ave. properties couched as the hoped-for Park Place. Nobody really the value of the paper which they are hoping will be purchased like mystery bags at a church raffle.
Congress is incredibly stupid and irresponsible to throw money into the wind which is never going to do anything beneficial for the U.S. economy. While this money is bailing out the money men, who's gonna bail out the taxpayers?
The $165+ Million bonuses is not outrageous (Political Heat Sears A.I.G); that is how the game has always been played. Ranger is chafed at the $58.8 Billion ending up in overseas banks. The only difference between the U.S. government and the Boy Scouts is that the Scouts have adult leadership.
Ranger gives a loud and clear vote of No Confidence to the bailouts and stimulus package. Both the Bush and Obama White houses are marked by reactivity and being controlled by events. Somebody needs to get ahead of the problem (see The Big Takeover, courtesy Juan Moment).
The U.S. has put the cart before the horse and like a martyr, complains about its burden. The fact is, people who earn $165 Million in bonuses can hornswaggle poorly paid government officials any day of the week.
That is how they earn their bonuses. They are clever boys.
Labels: A.I.G. bonus, depressed economy, stimulus package
posted by rangeragainstwar at 7:33 PM
11 Comments:
Blogger Dave Schuler I think has it right:
I may have mentioned it before but many, many years ago I had a boss who measured any given job according to two axes: impact and accountability. From his viewpoint the perfect job was one that had maximum impact (you had a lot of influence, a lot of power) and minimum accountability (you couldn’t get blamed if something went wrong).
By that standard the job of U. S. senator, for example, and particularly a U. S. senator from the state of Illinois is practically the perfect job. You have, if you care to wield it, substantial influence but practically no accountability. Certainly the voters won’t hold you accountable for anything.
There are death threats against the children of some of these AIG executives, much ink has been spilled, yet the Congress, who allowed it all to happen in the first place, gets little criticism. A great job indeed.
If it every came out in to the open, it would look something like this. Bring back the Spitzer man
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html
Oh, the good days when good guys and bad guys used the same bank. There's more than the bonus here.
jo6pac
Yes I have my tin foil hat on, but still.
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS at COUNTERPUNCH:
"Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?."
i got the horse right here
his name is paul revere
and there's this guy who says
if the weather's clear
can do
can do
this guy says the horse can do
for paul revere i'll bite
i hear his foot's alright
that is, of course,
if it rained last night
likes mud, likes mud,
this "x" says the horse likes mud
now wait a minute boys
the horse is equipoise...
by bailing out AIG, we are bailing out the folks who bought their insurance scam.
buy american. fraud at its most brazen.
without the insurance to back their play the bond ratings folks couldn't have ranked the stuff so well, which meant that the pension funds and other stuff wouldn't have been induced to buy in.
just like nobody could have predicted the iraqis and afghans wouldn't appreciate us invading and staying in their country as an occupation force, and just like nobody could have predicted that new orleans and the rest of the gulf coast would have had such nasty hurricanes, nobody could have predicted that if an insurance company, the insuror of last resort did not follow the single most basic rule of insurance or playing craps at a game in a jersey hotel room with a great big motherfucker named tony as the host.
a man should never gamble
more than he can stand to lose.
i am so close to pulling a gaugain it's not even funny. i'll let the wingnuts go all galt and shit.
i'll go gaugain, might even learn to paint.
"by bailing out AIG, we are bailing out the folks who bought their insurance scam."
And therein lies the underpinnings of my thoughts...scam...and I've been feeling this way for about two weeks now.
Trillions, upon trillions of dollars being thrown at this blackhole, and still, it's ever widening yawn demands more.
I'm thinking it's time to stop feeding the beast.
Either it survives, or dies, and personally...I'm willing to let it die.
You know that feeling you get when some person you know, or don't know comes up to you with this "OMG! This is so freaking fantastic, act now, now, now, now!
And you say, "uh...now wait a minute, here, let me think."
And this guy is saying, "No time to think, time to act, now, now, now!"
This is how I feel we, the Taxpayers, are being handled by Wall Street and the Government, and my gut feeling is...something stinks.
And I can't help but feel that I'm being scammed.
MB,
You have exactly hit upon the brazenness. I, too, am thinking that becoming an ex-pat would not be a bad thing these days.
POLT,
Not only the bailout-as-scam, but everything that devolves from this "stimulus package," i.e., the inevitable inflation, which encourages people to spend vs. save as they predict ever decreasing value for their dollars. . .
Sheerahkahn,
It has felt like a bum rush from the inception. A dire situation, true enough, but the drama attendant upon it from our leaders is B-acting at its finest . . .
"The horror, the horror."
some essential rules i learned in my life are pretty obvious:
never play poker with a texan named slim.
never buy your rolex from some guy on the street.
never help out nigerian, italian, or romanian royalty recover their rightful inheritance.
never accept the offer of a loan from somebody whose middle name is "the." (as in vinnie the shark, vito the tank)
never, ever, under any circumstances take seriously investment advice from somebody who is shouting.
Lisa:
You might want to research where you want to "expat" to. The Euro banks are more leveraged than ours. The Icelanders bought in to wealth based on "financials," and some would jet off to Barcelona for Dinner (Vicky Cristina Barcelona). Now, they only thing they have are Cod futures.
for folks who don't understand some of history's financial waves and fluctuations i highly recommend david hackett fischer's "the great wave." it's thick and dense, but hey, historical economics is exactly that.
it's important to remember that one of the biggest worldwide recessions was caused by columbus.
the influx of sudden gold onto the european markets disrupted things to an astonishing level. some nations, like the example of today's iceland which was cited, actually had to resort to basing their currencies on foodstuffs. there were a couple of years where france's debts and currency were backed by wine.
the english resorted to outright piracy to try and achieve some semblance of balance with the spaniards. that piracy became privateering, which was the foundation for the british navy and eventual empire.
among the next shoes ready to drop are sudden devaluations (where the folks who are stacking deficits by printing extra money to buy their way into a new bubble) caused by rampant inflations (zimbabwe is already starting to suck angola, the congo, and south africa down the drain with it), or simple disappearing of "created" (or imagined) wealth. it is easy to envision a period of time (and even a short period of a month can absolutely disrupt the world economy for years) where goods simply cost more to produce than can ever be recovered by sale or trade.
creating another bubble is not the answer. systemic, rational restructurings need to be taking place. just not where folks usually expect them to take place.
obama's insistence on including education funding and healthcare are absolutely on target. infrastructure projects (although i would concentrate on rail systems before roads, and port systems connected to rails before rails alone). along with the rails, river and canal navigation projects would pay off handsomely both short and long term.
oh, yeah. it's high fucking time to quit killing our fine young people in stupid ass misbegotten wars that we cannot afford for even another month or so. the time for thinking about "responsibility" has long fucking passed. it's getting close to run away screaming time.
MB,
This moment presents the opportunity and the imperative for a resructing, vs. simply a plugging of the holes in the dike (to quote JP).
Eddie,
I know the damage is rippling out internationally, but ideologically I am not proud of the U.S. for many reasons, and they present a reason to leave. [My needs are humble, and I could do well anywhere, Cod is fine by me :)]
Hi Ranger,
Carpenter concurs. Make that 2 votes of no confidence.
Dave
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