Hat Tip: Doug
The attorneys general of Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia have also launched investigations and are demanding names addresses on documents concerning the bonuses of AIG contract employees. The Treasury Secretary Geithner, based upon this video, advised Congress of the AIG program which included retention bonuses.
Hat Tip on Video update: Joe Buzz
To get us out of this mess, we were told it was necessary to flood liquidity into the banking system. It was decided that joint cooperation between the government and banking system was necessary to avoid a complete breakdown of the world financial system.
Under the leadership of Obama, and the Democrats in the House, we have devolved into this quagmire. Half the Republicans joined the Democrats and voted for a bill that amounts to a bill of attainder. Public exposure of their names and addresses will expose them to physical danger.
Continued cooperation will be expected of bankers and financial specialists, who will face threats, derision and confiscation of property from the same government that needs their help. So we are told. What a mess!
In short The Bankers rule the USA while the poor guys like Bush and Obama have the job to take the heat and it gets hot (like now), as well as mislead people.
ReplyDeleteJust think, we have AT LEAST four years of this. Invest in "Popcorn," and Bud Light, me hearties. This is gonna be quite a show.
ReplyDeleteOh, and "Nitroglycerin" pills.
Public exposure of their names and addresses will expose them to physical danger.
ReplyDeleteI demand Secret Service protection for these folks exposed in such a way for just trying to collect their paychecks!
It is getting very creepy out there. I had two kids knocking on my door asking me if I would be supporting Barack Obama' budget for America.
ReplyDeleteThis has never happened before.
No Shit
ReplyDeletepost from "Obama for America":
ReplyDeleteGrassroots organizers and volunteers are back at it today, canvassing in communities across the country to build support for President Obama's plan to invest in health care, education and renewable energy. If you canvassed or tabled at an event today, send us your photos and stories at ofablog@gmail.com.
Look how worthless Drudge is:
ReplyDeleteFar as I can see, you'd never know it's all based on a giant pile of lies, ass-covering, demagoguery, mob inciting...
That's how we got here:
A totally bankrupt, ignorant, immature, anti-American press.
Yesterday somebody reminded me that if you asked any of those 13 Million Obama Youth Corps Members about his policies, you'd get a vacant stare.
ReplyDelete...or actually, you'd get a long line of BS about how much he inspires them, etc.
ReplyDeletePut in a rush order for 13 Million more Teleprompters.
Be careful answering your door. Now they are seeking pledges to he who reads the teleprompter:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7A-YwRi7t0&feature=related
Bankers on Wall Street and in Europe have struck back against moves by US lawmakers to slap punitive taxes on bonuses paid to high earners at bailed-out institutions.
ReplyDeleteSenior executives on both sides of the Atlantic on Friday warned of an exodus of talent from some of the biggest names in US finance, saying the “anti-American” measures smacked of “a McCarthy witch-hunt” that would send the country “back to the stone age”.
“Finance is one of America’s great industries, and they’re destroying it,” said one banker at a firm that has accepted public money. “This happened out of haste and anger over AIG, but we’re not like AIG.”
The banker added: “It’s like a McCarthy witch-hunt...This is the most profoundly anti- American thing I’ve ever seen.”
it is not smart politics and shows just how far out of his element Obama really is. Americans do not want personal representatives visiting them in their homes, uninvited, to discuss support for his policies.
ReplyDeleteBanker fury over tax ‘witch-hunt’
ReplyDeleteJoe, I put your video link up top. Thanks
ReplyDeleteYeah, but with all the Obama Youth Corps goose stepping to the polls and the 4 Billion ACORN'S got...
ReplyDeleteOnly people that have ever knocked on my door are the Mormons, and I don't mind at all.
ReplyDeleteBeing from the sticks out here, I doubt I'll be 'visited' by the Obumbleoids, but just in case maybe I should start thinking about a response.
What tactic could one use to throw a minor monkey wrench in their works?
ReplyDeleteThey never had to time to get out their clip board for me.
ReplyDeleteOne group that's alienatied is the Veterans Of America
ReplyDeleteThe comments show some pissed off people.
My mind has gone blank, and my fingers are frozen over the keyboard.
ReplyDeleteDoug typed what I was thinking. Vaguely reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Tis discomforting.
What I meant to say was:
ReplyDeleteWho NEEDS smart politics, when the system is rigged?
---
LINK
- Larsen
This Bloomberg report covers much of the report at deepcapture.com and explains the record amounts of money the big investment houses have been pouring into the Democratic party –especially the O campaign, where just the fundraising ‘of record’ was orders of magnitude greater that any previous election.
An average of six billion dollars per day simply conjured into being from nothing –greater by far than the old fabled alchemist’s lead into gold. the reporters at deepcapture have strong evidence the perps are ‘russian mafia’ and the Genoveses. These wise guys are legit brokers and also, that other phone, hedge fund apparatchiks.
What’s striking is, none of the authorities seem to do anything about it –it’s like getting a corrupt police dept to investigate itself, i guess. no antidote but MOWH (man-on-white-horse).
...better be a damned big and strong white horse.
ReplyDeleteI'd have Lee Marvin get some underground plan into action.
ReplyDeleteThere's a special election for a New York House seat in 10 days and Republican Tedisco might win. What polling I've seen gives him a chance.
ReplyDeleteDamn,
ReplyDeleteCedar's learned Muslimese!
...or is that 'Rat?
:-)
"What polling I've seen gives him a chance."
ReplyDelete---
What good are votes when ACORN counts them?
79. twobyfour:
ReplyDelete@ 74. nullification?
Yea, I was stopped by this statuesque pretty thing with what looked like a polystyrene shark around her hips (it wuz a dolphin), asking for my signature for an enviro-mental cause. The girl was a temptation incarnate, but I gathered my wits and pointed out several pointed examples of enviro-mental lunacies. She attempted a few feeble rebuttals, but then laughed because musa of humor was floating right above my crown and supplied the ammo. About half way home I realized how uncannily pretty she was, but it was too late to turn back. The shark would have to go, though.
But you see, that was a piece of cake. 0Y SA would be a different matter. I would tell’em in no uncertain terms what I think should be their destination, but then, I have been primed in my previous life living under a totalitarian regime, and second, I am not afraid of anything or anyone.
Other people may mistake their stakes and respond with some tint of fear.
Speaking of knock on the door… One day, 2 knock-out model quality Jehowa Witnesesess were pushing the Watchtower. Boy, what a conundrum! It was like vampirettes–their look and smell, everything inviting you in, but I got a hold of myself and declared myself being a satanist.
864,396
ReplyDeleteOMG! That is a holocaust!
They were sireens, Doug. Calling you to certain death.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Obamanoids, DR pointed out that the fact that 44% of Republicans joining the banker witchhunt indicates how far left the country seems to have moved.
106. Annoy Mouse:
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time my dad was having dinner at some Christian friends house when there was a knock on the door. The husband answered and was engaged with a theological argument for some minutes before the wife joined in too. After what seemed like an interminable time the wife came out to see if my dad talk some sense into them. The following conversation ensued:
My dad - ” You’re a Jehovah’s Witness, is that right?”
Jehovah Witness - “Yes, we are.”
My dad - “Do you believe that approximately 144,000 people will be summoned to heaven?”
Jehovah Witness - “Yes, we do.”
My dad - “and you believe these people will be you and fellow Jehovah Witnesses?”
Jehovah Witness - “that is right.”
My dad - “Well, if heaven is full of a bunch of ass-holes like you, I don’t want to go.”
That pretty much ended the debate and they went back to finish their dinner.
As to the Obamanoids, DR pointed out that the fact that 44% of Republicans joining the banker witchhunt indicates how far left the country seems to have moved.
ReplyDelete---
Or how far insane we've come to want Nazi Government Tactics.
For A.I.G. Executives, Tour Bus Is Here
ReplyDeleteFor the handful of executives whose names — and addresses — have slipped out, life is no longer the same: private security guards watch over their homes, reporters seek interviews in the driveways and, on Saturday, a bus and a caravan of press vehicles showed up at their doorsteps.
One organizer called it “Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous” — a bus tour of the Connecticut homes of two executives with the American Insurance Group, otherwise known as A.I.G. It was organized by the Connecticut Working Families Party, a coalition of labor and community groups, and it drew about 40 activists.
---
“It was never the intent to have any sort of mob action,” said Jon Green, the director of the Connecticut Working Families Party. “It’s a tour. It’s a chance to see what these residences are like, and to point out that there’s families who are experiencing this recession in a different way.”
This is Geithner's (leaked) plan for the banks.
ReplyDeleteAmerican Thinker
As John Cole put it rather brutally and succinctly:
If this were a medical emergency, it appears it would look something like this:
The Illness - reckless and irresponsible betting led to huge losses
The Diagnosis - Insufficient gambling.
The Cure - a Trillion dollar stack of chips provided by the house.
The Prognosis- We are so screwed.
If these guys are right, this will be the undoing of the Obama administration. Better enjoy this four years, libs.
It's interesting that the media is beginning to report the unsustainable aspects of the trillion dollar deficits.
ReplyDeleteIt becomes obvious why the left is so concerned about "rights for the terrorists" given that they are judging us by themselves, and they (and half the Republicans) have shown themselves to be willing to sacrifice constitutional rights over a financial crisis.
ReplyDelete…when their real concern FOR THEMSELVES is us acting like them.
Anyone want a job at AIG?
Whit,
ReplyDeleteYeah, how can Krugman and Juan Cole BOTH be wrong when they are criticizing their hero?
The Obama Administration has been a disaster beyond all worst case senarios.
ReplyDeleteLet’s face facts.
0bama belongs in the
“Financial Special Olympics.”
He is a spoiled retarded idiot.
Lp @ Gateway
"Iran has stated its conditions.
ReplyDeleteLift the sanctions.
Make nice.
Stop supporting Israel.
By publicly offering to speak to Teheran without knowing what that regime’s response would be, President Obama gave it a chance to throw pie in his face, which it did;
and it implicitly left the Ayatollah’s with the power to determine when its suitor in the White House would be sufficiently shaved, barbered and bathed to be worthy of speech.
The President will have his dialogue in due time. But only after he has paid the price."
- Wretch
---
...which is what I said in my funky way back in the Naive thread.
"But only after WE have paid the price."
Costa Rica Any Way You Want It
ReplyDeleteAmerican Thinker Blog 'Are we a banana republic'
ReplyDeleteAmerican Thinker Blog 'Are we a banana republic'
ReplyDelete==
Only you can't even grow bananas!
"The White House economic team may not be all we hoped for, but let them work in peace for a few days without having to worry that some legislator in search of outrage creds is going to crash through the window and bite Tim Geithner on the ankle."
ReplyDelete---
Yeah, while he stokes rage against Private Citizens.
Only a Liberal Bitch like Gail Collins could come up with something so abysmally stupid.
Speak for yourself Canuck Boy!
ReplyDeleteI've got some so ripe we had to put them in the fridge!
(you could just put them near a window)
Shit. Gregor is reporting that Mexican oil production is crashing so fast now, that public PEMEX forecasts are often taken out by data arriving just several weeks later. :(
ReplyDeleteThe Teleprompter actually made a meaningful statement today. Compared Geithner to Alexander Hamilton, one of my villains. El-Rushbo got on this, and pointed out how Hamilton was the big money boy, big government boy, the guy who Jefferson, thinking all virtue came from the countryside, derided to no end, and alleged he was trying to bring back royalty by another name. Good comparison, apt today. Chalk one up for the Teleprompter.
ReplyDeleteGM, Chrysler May Need More Aid Than Requested, Rattner Says - Bloomberg.com
ReplyDeleteMarch 21 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC may need “considerably” more than the $21.6 billion in aid they requested, which was based on optimistic recovery plans, said Steven Rattner, the Treasury’s chief auto adviser.
President Barack Obama’s auto task force is assessing proposals from GM and Chrysler to decide whether to recommend U.S. assistance or tip the carmakers into bankruptcy. Rattner made the comments yesterday on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.
The task force will give its “sense of direction” by March 31, Rattner said. The companies have received $17.4 billion since December and asked for the additional $21.6 billion in aid last month, an amount that depends on achieving turnaround plans that are “somewhat ambitious,” Rattner said.
==
I think we need to see a stock rally in these stocks. I'm predicting GM goes to $50!
General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC may need “considerably” more than the $21.6 billion in aid they requested
ReplyDeleteNo! I just don't believe it. Think of that, they miscalculated how much they'd need, on the low side of course.
But, then, Santa Claus is in town, even if it's his off season. This don't happen just every year.
The companies have received $17.4 billion since December and asked for the additional $21.6 billion in aid last month..
ReplyDelete==
$40 billion. And that's on top of all the direct gov subsidizes for their auto plants and the tax breaks they already received.
subsidies
ReplyDeleteDon't Ignore Bernanke's Bell -- Seeking Alpha
ReplyDeleteThere is an old adage on Wall Street that no one rings a bell at major market tops or bottoms. That may be true in normal times, but as many have noticed, we are now completely through the looking glass. In this parallel reality, Ben Bernanke has just rung the loudest bell ever heard in the foreign exchange and government debt markets. Investors who ignore the clanging do so at their own peril. The bell's reverberations will be felt by everyday Americans, whose lives are about to change in ways few can imagine.
While nearly every facet of America's economy has been devastated over the past six months, our national currency has thus far skipped through the carnage with nary a scratch. Ironically, the U.S dollar has been the beneficiary of the global economic crises which the United States set in motion. As a result, our economy has thus far been spared the full force of the storm.
This week the Federal Reserve finally made clear what should have been obvious for some time - the only weapon that the Fed is willing to use to fight the economic downturn is a continuing torrent of pure, undiluted, inflation. The announcement should be seen as a game changer that redirects the fury of the financial storm directly onto our shores.
In its statement, the Fed announced its intention to purchase an additional $1 trillion worth of U.S. treasury and agency debt. The purchases, of course, will be made with money created out of thin air through the Fed's printing presses. Few can doubt that they will persist with these operations until the economy returns to its former health. Whether or not this can ever be accomplished with a printing press alone has never been seriously considered. Bernanke himself admits that we are in uncharted waters, with no map or compass, just simply a hope that more dollars are the answer.
Rather than solving our problems, more inflation will only add to the crisis. Falling asset prices, the credit crunch, declining consumer spending, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and layoffs are all part of the necessary rebalancing of our economy. These wrenching movements, however painful, are the market's attempts to resolve the serious problems at the root of our bubble economy. Attempts to literally paper-over these problems will lead to disaster.
Now that the Fed has recklessly shown its hand, the mad dash to get out of Treasuries and dollars should not be far off. The more the Fed prints to buy bonds the less the dollar is worth. Holders of our debt (read China and Japan) understand this dynamic. We must expect that they will not only refuse to buy new bonds, but they will look to unload those bonds they already own.
Under normal circumstances, if creditors grew concerned that inflation was eating into their returns, the Fed would raise interest rates to entice them to buy. However, the Fed will avoid this course of action as it fears higher rates are too heavy a burden for our debt laden economy to bear. To maintain artificially low rates, the Fed will be forced to purchase trillions more debt then it expects as it becomes the only buyer in a seller's market.
Just last week, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao voiced concern about his country's massive investments in U.S. government debt. In the most unequivocal statement yet by the Chinese leadership on this issue, Wen made it plain that he was concerned with depreciation, not default. With his fears now officially confirmed by the Fed statement, we must wonder when the Chinese will finally change course.
There is a growing consensus that if China no longer wants to buy our bonds, we can simply print the money and buy them ourselves. This naïve view fails to consider the consequences implicit in such a change. When the Treasury sells bonds to China, no new dollars are printed. Instead, China prints yuan which it then uses to buy treasurers. This effectively allows America to export its inflation to China. However, now that we will be printing the money ourselves, the full inflationary impact will fall directly on us.
With such a policy in place, America has now become a banana republic. It won't be too long before our living standards reflect our new status.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/127120-don-t-ignore-bernanke-s-bell?source=feed
http://snipurl.com/eayco
Yeah,
ReplyDeleteSo I think Rufus just may be a tad overoptimistic about this "recession" being over.
We may all find we are
ReplyDelete"experiencing this recession in a different way.”"
Maybe I should join ACORN
Americans must stop Barack Obama and the Pelosicrats from their program of economic suicide.
ReplyDeleteThe alternative is too difficult to contemplate.
I just noticed that if I post this--
ReplyDeleteالفرقد أبو الفرقد
my spacer eraser works backwards.
One must admit these computer programmers are clever.
al-Doug, how do you figure Whiskey would explain This Phenomenon in his modern sexual/big man/polygamy/aggression theories?
ReplyDeletejust askin'
World economy kills four-door Lamborghini
ReplyDeleteDamn, now I can't even get that Lambo!
What the hell is a spacer eraser?
ReplyDeleteyer backspacer, then
ReplyDeleteI don't know what Whiskey would think, but I think they look worthy of a nation under "President" Barack Hussein Obama.
ReplyDeleteMessiah in Chief
ReplyDeletespacer eraser = when your hyperpowerplant warps gravity and ya go like hell
ReplyDeleteSo it puts them in when you tell it to take them out?
ReplyDeleteThat Amy Northcutt isn't half bad.
ReplyDeleteA democratic middle class is THE generator of wealth - not fascist corporatism, not feudalist commertialism, not totalitarian communism.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you doin messin around with that Muslim stuff anyhoo?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinkin you and the little lady may need a stop at the homestead by the tour bus.
Erases laft to right rather than right to left, unless I've been drinking.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't gonna look after the first two!
ReplyDeleteA large democratic middle class is the way to go, that's sure what I think too.
ReplyDeleteThere's half a dozen "Amys!"
ReplyDeleteDeanna Bobo, 37: Special-education teacher at Raymond E. Wells Junior High School in Greenwood, Ark.,
ReplyDeleteallegedly had sex twice in 2005 with a 14-year-old boy in his own bed while his parents were not home.
She denied the charge, but was convicted in September 2006 of two counts of first-degree sexual assault and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
That would be a special education, indeed.
Advanced Home Schooling
Now you're talkin', an Amy for every father's son.
ReplyDeletePoor Deanna Bobo took a hit. A lot of these girls have gotten off with probation.
ReplyDeleteLeTourneau married that kid too. Love conquers all.
Amor Vincit Omnia.
ReplyDeleteThat's what Vinney told me.
Oddly, the Brazilian spider delivers more than a painful bite that sends most victims to the hospital. Researchers have found its venom also stimulates an hours-long erection in men.
ReplyDeleteBrazilian Wandering Spider
Brazilian wonder spider.
Hirsh: The Next AIG Scandal? | Newsweek Voices - Michael Hirsh | Newsweek.com
ReplyDelete.Outrageous. It's the preferred adjective used by Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke to describe AIG, the crippled giant that has turned into a national money pit. AIG has swallowed at least $170 billion in taxpayer money so far while funneling $165 million of it onward in bonuses to its incompetent executives, along with tens of billions more to equally privileged "counterparties" like Goldman Sachs.
But I suspect that—with apologies to a famous American patriot—we have not yet begun to get outraged. At least if some of the insurance experts I've been talking to are correct.
Thomas Gober, a former Mississippi state insurance examiner who has tracked fraud in the industry for 23 years and served previously as a consultant to the FBI and the Department of Justice, says he believes AIG's supposedly solvent insurance business may be at least as troubled as its reckless financial-products unit. Far from being "healthy," as state insurance regulators, ratings agencies and other experts have repeatedly described the insurance side, Gober calls it "a house of cards." Citing numerous documents he has obtained from state insurance regulators and obscure data buried in AIG's own 300-page annual reports, Gober argues that AIG's 71 interlocking domestic U.S. insurance subsidiaries are in hock to each other to an astonishing degree.
Most of this as-yet-undiscovered problem, Gober says, lies in the area of reinsurance, whereby one insurance company insures the liabilities of another so that the latter doesn't have to carry all the risk on its books. Most major insurance companies use outside firms to reinsure, but the vast majority of AIG's reinsurance contracts are negotiated internally among its affiliates, Gober says, and these internal balance sheets don't add up. The annual report of one major AIG subsidiary, American Home Assurance, shows that it owes $25 billion to another AIG affiliate, National Union Fire, Gober maintains. But American has only $22 billion of total invested assets on its balance sheet, he says, and it has issued another $22 billion in guarantees to the other companies. "The American Home assets and liquidity raise serious questions about their ability to make good on their promise to National Union Fire," says Gober, who has a consulting business devoted to protecting policyholders. Gober says there are numerous other examples of "cooked books" between AIG subsidiaries. Based on the state insurance regulators' own reports detailing unanswered questions, the tally in losses could be hundreds of billions of dollars more than AIG is now acknowledging.
One early sign of trouble came when Christian Milton, AIG's vice president of reinsurance from 1982 to 2005, was convicted last year in federal district court of conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud and making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Milton was sentenced in January; his lawyers have indicated plans to appeal.)
AIG spokesman Mark Herr took strong exception: "We strongly disagree with Mr. Gober's analysis, which lacks a fundamental understanding of our commercial insurance operations' inter-company risk sharing agreements or even the basics of statutory accounting. Our primary regulators, including New York and Pennsylvania, regularly review our statutory filings as well as our intra-company risk sharing pool, and have raised no objections to this structure. They have repeatedly stated that we have sufficient financial strength to meet our obligations. In fact, in today's hearing on AIG, Joel Ario, Pennsylvania State Insurance Commissioner, commented that the insurance companies of AIG remain strong and well capitalized."
But if Gober is right, the implications are almost too awful to contemplate. Despite its troubles on Wall Street, AIG is still the largest insurance company in the United States, controlling both the largest life and health insurer and the second-largest property and casualty insurer. It has 30 million U.S. customers. AIG is also a major provider of guaranteed investment contracts and products that protect people in 401(k) plans, as well as being the leading commercial insurer in the U.S. It is one of the largest insurance companies in the world, with insurance and financial operations in more than 130 countries. These insurance businesses were once thought to be so solid that AIG was able to use the triple-A rating it was routinely awarded to start up its vast credit-default-swap business.
Public outrage has been building, along with the outcry about bonuses, over all the taxpayer money that has gone to keep AIG afloat by paying off the credit-default-swap counterparties. While some worries have surfaced about the various insurance companies' risky securities-lending practices, most have escaped scrutiny. But if millions of AIG policyholders are at risk too and no one's saying it yet, the populist backlash could get really ugly.
Gober has brought his allegations to the attention of the House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Barney Frank. A committee spokesman did not immediately return a call asking for comment. But over at the Senate banking committee, ranking member Sen. Richard Shelby during hearings last week raised questions about whether AIG's insurance side was as sound as the company maintained it to be. In response, Eric Dinallo, New York state's superintendent of insurance, said he thought "the operating companies of AIG, particularly the property companies, are in excellent condition." But Dinallo noted that as New York's regulator he is obligated to oversee only those AIG companies domiciled there. He added that in some areas "there are problems with state insurance regulation. I've been a proponent of us revisiting it."
And therein lies the real problem. More than any other Wall Street rogue, AIG has been able to indulge in "regulatory arbitrage" on a global scale, creating totally unsupervised businesses that act beyond the purview of any government (AIG has repeatedly said that its problems were confined to the London-based financial-products unit). The company's ability to escape an umbrella regulator was one reason the financial-products group was able to sell, indiscriminately and without hedges, credit-default swaps around the world in the belief that they could never all come due at once. They did. Fed chairman Bernanke told lawmakers in early March that AIG "exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system" and was essentially a hedge fund attached to a "large and stable insurance company." But is that really an accurate description? Huge regulatory gaps also exist in insurance. "There is no federal insurance regulator," according to a senior government banking official, only individual state agencies. Are we missing something really big here? If so, there might be another terrible reckoning to come.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/189917
http://snipurl.com/eb1bt
==
I'll say it again. There's only one solution here. Line them up against a wall and shoot them dead.
"Here we again with another gusher of pent-up stupidity. "
ReplyDeleteI'll say it again. There's only one solution here. Line them up against a wall and shoot them dead.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
ReplyDeleteAIG warns employees to travel in pairs
AIG warns employees to travel in pairs
Observer/Guardian:
The embattled US insurance company AIG has warned its staff to travel in pairs after dark, not to wear company logos and to avoid
discussing their work outside the office, as public outrage boils over at multimillion-dollar executive bonuses.
AIG's employees have been subjected to death threats since the company handed out $165m (£115m) in "retention" awards to
employees in its disastrously loss-making financial products division this week.
Recipients of the bonuses said they feared for their own safety. A union-backed campaign group is today taking protesters on a bus
tour of AIG executives' homes in a wealthy enclave of Connecticut known as the "gold coast".
via prairiepundit
I wish the shit birds at the NY Times would shut up about Costa Rica.
ReplyDeleteYou've got my sympathy there, Deuce. I can think of many places ruined by being found and advertised. Just start with Sun Valley, go from there.
ReplyDeleteLT,
ReplyDeleteHere's a million American Pesos, go shuffle papers at AIG. And I'll throw a Nobel prize in for you, if you're really creative and manage to produce something useful, other than fraud.
I think that destroying a person's life savings should be considered manslaughter. Someone that deliberately destroys the life savings of more than 3 persons thru fraud and other such schemes, should be considered a mass murderer and should be facing capital punishment.
ReplyDeleteFeel better now?
ReplyDeleteAnd if a country imposes economic impediments on those that are living under occupation conditions, siege and blockade, causing them to lose more than their life savings, but limits their ability to even earn a living, what is the appropriate punishment for that outlaw regime, mat?
ReplyDeleteAnd the people that support it?
ReplyDeleteThe illegal appropriation of real property, how should that be punished, mat?
ReplyDeleteTHe Judge that signs the eviction notice, should he be shot, or just imprisoned for the duration of his life?
His children, they should suffer the same punishment, in mat's world, correct?
ReplyDeleteAlmost unremarked upon, the in the streets political campaign by the Obama supporters.
ReplyDeleteA campaign that did not end at the election, because neither history or politics ended, then.
First they campaign for the Obama, now they'll campaign for his and their policies. This is opposed because it ...
democratizes the democracy?
And those opposed to Obama and his policies offer what in response?
No! is not enough. It was the same challenge faced in the campaign, the Maverick did not campaign on policy, but personality,
He got thumped.
There are few alternate proposals put forth as other possible options, most likely due to the fact that 44% of the Republicans in the House are bonafide Federal Socialists, as evidenced by the AIG tax bonus vote.
Number 12 of Alinsky's Rules
ReplyDeleteRULE 11: "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."
Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
The president plays by Alinsky's Rules, better know and understand them, utilize them as needed, if you're going to play in oppositon to Team Obama.
Only 24% of the House voted against using the Tax Code to violate the politically unpopular.
ReplyDelete76% voted in the affirmative.
There is the political "Center",
amigos.
scary, I mean it. The opposition party is pathetic.
ReplyDeleteRep. Eric Cantor and 84 Republicans voted to support a confiscatory tax on a targeted group of unpopular Americans.
ReplyDeleteLessons learned.
AND, it's a Bill of Attainder.
ReplyDeleteI don't need no stinking Constitution, I'm not Ron Paul or some out to lunch Paleocon.
ReplyDelete"And the people that support it?"
ReplyDelete---
Population Control!
...the women that supported it, however, will not be euthanized, but disenfranchised for life.
...and left for us to do with as we please.
The 90% tax only applies to entities that have received more than 5 Billion from the Feds.
ReplyDeleteSo next door neighbors with the same income, working for different companies, one receiving over 5 billion and the other less, will have RADICALLY different after tax income.
But, such is life, in the Post Bill of Attainder Era
ReplyDeleteTax Advantages of Alpaca Ownership
ReplyDeleteSince Section 179 started in 2003 they have extended the expiration several times and made several changes, including raising the limit from $100,000 to $250,000, and increasing the bonus depreciation from 50% to 100%! This means that on top of deducting your entire first alpaca purchase, you can also deduct the entire cost of building your barn and fencing, or setting up your home office with a new computer and furniture, all in the very first year! So, depending on your tax bracket, the government will pay up to 45% of the cost of starting-up your Alpaca Ranch!
ReplyDeleteRanch equipment qualifies as well, so you can also deduct the full price of your new truck or tractor!
Thanks, Doug, I've bookmarked that Alpaca item. If I do this right, I can buy an alpaca, fence the place in Ohio in, remodel the barn, remodel part of the house for an office, buy myself a nice pickup and a garden tractor too, write it all off in one year. Not bad. God Bless the US Congress and the Tax
ReplyDeleteCode.
They are here to serve us.
ReplyDeleteDon't Worry, Be Happy!
ReplyDeleteLawrence Tribe says it's not a Bill of Attainder. Says the slippery folks in Congress broadened it out enough so it isn't. That's what he says.
ReplyDeleteCute little critters. I wonder what they're good for?
ReplyDeleteDVR Alpacas - Maidens for Sale - $20,000
ReplyDelete---
Barney's Probly Cheaper than that!
Did I read not long ago it was the Palestinians that passed a law for the crudifying of Christians and others until certain circumstances, or did I just dream that? Aren't those the folks that turned their territory into a launching pad to fire missiles day and night at other people? Aren't they the people that were so obnoxious to others that they were kicked out of three or four arab countries? That go around killing their own if they are not militant enough? The ones whose charter says to push Israel into the sea? And trashed the greenhouses?
ReplyDeleteValeri's Insatiable Vixen
ReplyDeleteJeesuz al-Bob, everybody knows the Jews made them do it.
ReplyDeleteChill Out.
$15,000--$20,000 a critter. Pricey. If they breed up good, you ought to recover the investment in short order. Beats the current stock market. And look at that fancy barn, al-Doug! A guy could sleep and live in there, right with the alpacas!
ReplyDeleteJust for warmth, of course.
ReplyDeleteSire
ReplyDeleteAla Kazam White 822101 1/4 Peruvian 3/4 Chilean Blue Ribbon fleece winner
And, the winning humper is--Ali Kazam!!
You won't get 'fleeced' with Ali in your barn!
Sounds like a fuckin Muslim.
ReplyDeleteProbly stones the Maidens.
Ali's got the stones to do it that's for shur. It's how he makes his living.
ReplyDeleteAll balls, no brains, like a good alpaca.
ReplyDeleteWell, for once I'll say good nite.
ReplyDeletegrrr
I mean fur, as I retire from the Bar to the Barm.
Barn, bedroom, whatever.
ReplyDeleteOnce more unto the Barn, my friend!
ReplyDeleteAnd if a country imposes economic impediments on those that are living under occupation conditions, siege and blockade, causing them to lose more than their life savings, but limits their ability to even earn a living, what is the appropriate punishment for that outlaw regime, mat?
ReplyDelete==
Same.
And, grrnight, al-Doug.
ReplyDeleteOr, good morning, as it is here. Birds are starting to chirp outside.
(you don't have birds in Hawaii. They're those things with wings, if you've forgotten)
I'm thinking of going into Alpaca breeding, Mat. In Kentucky, they breed horses. I'm gonna bring Alpaca breeding to Ohio. Sell my finest to rich arabs.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing Arabs are interested in are imperial dreams of conquest. So if you share these dreams, you might share a common language with them.
ReplyDeleteMat is a Mass Bird killer.
ReplyDelete---
- Has a ‘Katrina Moment’ Arrived -
Has a ‘Katrina Moment’ Arrived?
By FRANK RICH
A CHARMING visit with Jay Leno won’t fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses won’t fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won’t fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans’ anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed. It would be foolish to dismiss as hyperbole the stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editor published by The Times last week: “President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived.”
Six weeks ago I wrote in this space that the country’s surge of populist rage could devour the president’s best-laid plans, including the essential Act II of the bank rescue, if he didn’t get in front of it. The occasion then was the Tom Daschle firestorm. The White House seemed utterly blindsided by the public’s revulsion at the moneyed insiders’ culture illuminated by Daschle’s post-Senate career. Yet last week’s events suggest that the administration learned nothing from that brush with disaster.
Otherwise it never would have used Lawrence Summers, the chief economic adviser, as a messenger just as the A.I.G. rage was reaching a full boil last weekend. Summers is so tone-deaf that he makes Geithner seem like Bobby Kennedy.
Bob Schieffer of CBS asked Summers the simple question that has haunted the American public since the bailouts began last fall: “Do you know, Dr. Summers, what the banks have done with all of this money that has been funneled to them through these bailouts?” What followed was a monologue of evasion that, translated into English, amounted to: Not really, but you little folk needn’t worry about it.
A CHARMING visit with Jay Leno won’t fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses won’t fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won’t fix it.
ReplyDelete==
Fix what? This systemic corruption will only be fixed when you fix these people with a bullet to the head.
Sheila Bair: FDIC Reserves To Hit Zero
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/03/sheila-bair-fdic-reserves-to-hit-zero.html
Calamitous day sees banks, credit unions seized
ReplyDeleteThree banks, two corporate credit unions taken over by regulators in evening
By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last update: 8:06 p.m. EDT March 20, 2009Comments: 1002
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The pace of the ongoing credit crisis quickened significantly Friday when regulators seized three banks and placed two large corporate credit unions into conservatorship, citing a need to "stabilize the corporate credit union system."
Banks in Colorado, Georgia and Kansas were closed by regulators, bringing the number of bank failures this year to 20, while the National Credit Union Administration Board seized corporate credit unions in California and Kansas that have a combined $57 billion in assets. Corporate credit unions are chartered to act as a sort of clearinghouse for the credit unions that serve consumers.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said that Stockbridge, Ga.-based FirstCity Bank was closed by regulators, adding that it will mail checks to FirstCity's insured depositors Monday morning.
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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Calamitous-day-sees-banks-credit/story.aspx?guid={1B67729E-D317-41BD-9503-11DE3E9B48AF}
"Reports: AIG Gave Out $50 Million More in Bonuses" | VOA News
ReplyDeleteAIG CEO Edward Liddy testifies, 18 Mar 2009, before the House Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises subcommittee
The American insurance company that caused outrage by paying out huge bonuses after receiving emergency money from the government, may have been even more generous than previously reported.
Published reports Saturday say documents submitted to the attorney general of Connecticut show AIG paid $218 million in bonuses. That is $53 million more than the insurance company previously reported.
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http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-21-voa23.cfm