You need motivation, asshole?
Let me see if I have this right.
The talent at AIG needs motivation of $175 million to retain the financial geniuses that got us into this mess. Some of them need a couple mil each, they are that skilled. Now when we have a national emergency such as helping the Iraqis achieve democracy, we round up cops and fireman, who are also guardsman, and send them on two and three tours of combat duty. We also keep them beyond their enlistment dates.
Let's look at history
In 1952, the US steelworkers went on strike. National wage controls had been reimposed to keep inflation in check during the Korean War. That was a financial emergency. Let me repeat, it was a national financial emergency. The USWA negotiators asked U.S. Steel for a large 30-cent per hour wage increase. The government recommended a 16.5 cent increase. Big steel said nada. Congress then threatened to overturn any Board agreement.
On March 8, 1952, President Truman nationalized the American steel industry, the courts intervened and Truman began preparations to draft the steelworkers into the army under the provisions of the Selective Service Act.
We have precedent. Here goes.
Draft the geniuses at AIG into the army. Pay them an E-4 rate and let them out when they clear up the mess. That should be all the motivation that they need.
Draft Barney Frank too.
ReplyDeleteDo not forget Phil Gramm.
ReplyDeleteThe list is endless.
Another great move by Team43, setting up the AIG bailout provisions.
Looks like it was Chris Dodd who slipped the provision in the Stimulus bill allowing these bonuses to be paid, to the folks from whom he had received campaign cash.
ReplyDeleteThe list is endless, is right.
If only somebody would read before voting, and signing....
But why is Obama so outraged and surprised? Today we learn that he signed the very bill that quite clearly made those bonuses legal — the $787 billion stimulus package he had traveled around the nation promoting. The bill includes restrictions on executive compensation, but creates an exception for bonuses contractually obligated before February 11 of this year. The provision, and the exception, were inserted into the bill by the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd (D, Conn.), who has received more than $100,000 from AIG employees in the last 20 years, had written and inserted the relevant provision, with the relevant loophole. How can he, the president, or anyone else who voted for the stimulus, suddenly act surprised? Don’t tell us they didn’t read the bill.
ReplyDeleteNational Review
Another Connecticut Yankee, Chris fuckin' Dodd.
ReplyDeleteContributions To Obama Campaign Track Bailout Money
ReplyDeleteDraft Obama, too. Oh, wait, he's Commander-In-Chief.
LET PEOPLE FAIL
ReplyDeleteSTOP THE NANNY STATE
STOP THE INSANITY
Yucca Mountain, Not Dead Yet, But On Life Support
ReplyDeleteheheheh, you got to have a sense of humour. If you lack a sense of humour, this stuff ought to create one in you.
ReplyDeleteMarch 17, 2009
Our Brilliant Class Warfare Generals Attack Their Own Troops
Clarice Feldman
After sinking our money into companies like AIG to keep them afloat and the credit markets operating, how dumb is it of the President and Senators like Dodd to attack the AIG bonuses to those key employees who we need to bring the company back into the red again? From the WaPo:
Politicians and the public spent yesterday demanding that AIG rescind payouts that they said rewarded recklessness and greed at a company being bailed out with $170 billion in taxpayer funds. But company officials contend that the uproar is scaring away the very employees who understand AIG Financial Products' complex trades and who are trying to dismantle the division before it further endangers the world's economy.
"It's going to blow up," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I have a horrible, horrible, horrible feeling that this is going to end badly."
American Thinker
Completely killing the Yucca project would expose the federal government to billions of dollars in liabilities
ReplyDelete==
Why the federal government? Why not the Nuke industry?
American Thinker
ReplyDelete==
Basically, another ransom note.
Under the Nuclear Waste Act, the federal government has a legal obligation to collect and dispose of the spent fuel from the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear reactors.
ReplyDeleteThat's how she's written, seems to be.
That's how she's written, seems to be.
ReplyDelete==
Not a problem. But why is not the nuke industry paying for it? I pay the gov to remove my garbage, why is the nuke industry exempt?
Cause their lobbyists got to the Congressfolks?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/17/vets-group-blasts-obama-plan-private-insurance-pay-service-related-health-care/
ReplyDeleteWhiskey Tango Foxtrot?...over
Honorable Senator,
I am writing to express my outrage at the current planned action of the Obama administration to require private insurance carriers and private citizens who are veterans for treatment of troops injured in the service of their country. This is an abdication of the mandate of the VA to provide for those who have honorably served our nation and will place an undue burden on tens of thousands at a time of economic difficulty. As a voice on Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, I strongly encourage you to publicly state your opposition to this immoral and unreasonable action.
This and I would like to draw you attention to these statements made by Mr. Obama a year ago:
“When soldiers return from fighting, they deserve nothing but the best in medical care, he said. More needs to be done, he said, to understand the effects of post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury on soldiers returning from war.”
“We’ll have to keep our sacred trust with our veterans and fully fund the (Veterans Administration). We’ll have to look after our wounded warriors, whether they’re suffering from wounds seen or unseen,” he said.
Ref: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/homepage/x989802180
Thank you for your time,
$900M to Fatah and Hamas to rebuild Israel but cant pony up $500M to fund the Veterans administration. That and not reading legislation prior to signing it into law and then bitching about the conditions therein...I'm growing quite weary of these folks that are supposed to be running the USA.
ReplyDeleteCause their lobbyists got to the Congressfolks?
ReplyDelete==
So let's see:
The gov pays for insurance costs
The gov pays for disposal costs
The gov pays for storage costs (hundreds of years)
The gov pays for cheap financing
The gov pays for decommission costs
And still no takers.
$900M to Fatah and Hamas to rebuild Israel but cant pony up $500M to fund the Veterans administration.
ReplyDelete==
The brazenness of these people just knows no bounds.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI finally got my webcam working and I made another post at my humble little blog
ReplyDeletewww.ashrants.com
The gov pays for insurance costs
ReplyDeleteThe gov pays for disposal costs
The gov pays for storage costs (hundreds of years)
The gov pays for cheap financing
The gov pays for decommission costs
And still no takers
Green lobby Mat, envirowackos.
More concerned about the Giant Palouse Earthworm, than us folks.
Thankfully, we know the alternative energy people will turn down all government help:)
Obama Received a $101,332 Bonus from AIG
ReplyDeleteMarch 17, 3:01 PM
Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are - Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama.
The A.I.G. Financial Products affiliate of A.I.G. gave out $136,928, the most of any AIG affiliate, in the 2008 cycle. I would note that A.I.G.’s financial products division is the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps and "misjudged" the risk.
The Washington Post reports a "mob effect" at A.I.G financial products division:
A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn't show up at all.
With the anger and rage that is being exhibited against A.I.G., perhaps the bonuses Obama received from A.I.G. explain Obama's A.I.G crocodile tears.
Now that the Wall street Journal has revealed that A.I.G. paid bonuses of $1 million or more to 73 employees, it's time to ask if recipients of A.I.G. "bonuses," including President Obama, will give what now ought to be taxpayer money back?
$900M to Fatah and Hamas to rebuild Israel but cant pony up $500M to fund the Veterans administration.
ReplyDeleteMan, that says it.
Thankfully, we know the alternative energy people will turn down all government help:)
ReplyDelete==
:)
Yes, the couple of billion they got from the gov will go a long way in competing with the advertising budget of the oil mafia.
Deuce, we need to blogroll ol' Ash, don't ya think?
ReplyDeleteCool, Ash. How'd ya do that?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but did Obama get that bonus before the bailout, Bob?
ReplyDeleteCampaign contributions, Sam, before the fact is how I read it.
ReplyDeleteI think Ash was blogrolled before. As I recall.
ReplyDeleteThat your voice, Ash? You sound almost...normal.
ReplyDeleteRussia To Arm Up
ReplyDeleteas we arm down.
ah shucks rufus, thanks! It really isn't all that difficult - you just stick one them web cam's on top of the monitor and, if the drivers are installed properly, turn it on and away you go ;)
ReplyDeleteNo Bobal, not my voice. Ole Ash is a composite. It takes more than one person to make 'em tick but he's my spud, my brainchild and the music is original and recorded live, in one take, with no practice before hand - improv...uh, oh, I'm out of character....shhhhhh!
We plan on making regular posts, not as regular as here, but still pretty regular. Some pretty funny stuff cimin' down the pipes - planning on some 'man in the street' interviews. A tater in the street...
Rufus, the link is up. Very clever Ash.
ReplyDeleteHe did it
ReplyDeleteIn the letter, Mr. Geithner confirmed that the government would subtract $165 million — the amount of the bonuses — from the latest $30 billion loan to A.I.G. that would bring the total loans to $200 billion, from the original $85 billion.
Mr. Geithner reiterated the Treasury position that lawyers inside and out of government had agreed that “it would be legally difficult to prevent these contractually mandated payments.”
That position was being questioned at the Capitol. Congressional Republicans, eager to implicate Democrats, initially blamed Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the banking committee, for adding to the economic recovery package an amendment that cracked down on bonuses at companies getting bailout money, but that exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like A.I.G.’s.
Mr. Dodd, in turn, responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the exemption actually had been inserted at the insistence of Treasury during Congress’s final legislative negotiations.
"I didn't know"
ReplyDelete...Rev. Wright is a racist
...Bill Ayers was a terrorist
...Rod Blagojevich is a crook
...how bad things are
...about the AIG bonuses
Ash really wants to move to Idaho, that's what's really going on.
ReplyDeleteGuilty As Hell, Still Free As A Bird
ReplyDelete