Tag: AIG

New York prostitution expert says we’ve been screwed by the Secretary of the Treasury

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, also known as Client Number 9, says Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been screwing the American people for years.

Eliot Spitzer is a very cost-effective public servant. He got screwed for $1000, but it cost Tim Geithner $13 billion.
Eliot Spitzer is a very cost-effective public servant. He got screwed for $1000, but it cost Tim Geithner $13 billion.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, also known as Client Number 9, says Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been screwing the American people for years.

NewsMax.org reports the sordid details of this pseudo-sex scandal:

…Spitzer cites a new report on the government bailout of AIG, issued by Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky that reveals that then-New York Fed President Geithner and others capitulated to the very banks they should have been supervising.

After Geithner intervened in AIG’s negotiations with its counterparties, which included Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and UBS, they received 100 cents for every dollar the giant insurer owed them, even though they were ready to accept much less.

Geithner’s intervention added at least $13 billion to the bailout costs, which taxpayers will ultimately pay.

“Barofsky’s report reads like a case study in failed negotiation,” Spitzer writes in Slate magazine.

“The New York Fed didn’t have the backbone to stand up to Wall Street, didn’t understand its capacity to protect taxpayers, and didn’t appreciate that its responsibility was to taxpayers.”

We think Spitzer is being a tad harsh. C’mon, Eliot, cut Geithner a little slack. The guy didn’t even know how to do his taxes. So what makes you think he capable of understanding complex financial negotiations?

Source: NewsMax.com

What happened to the congressional uproar about AIG executive bonuses?

Ssssssh! Never again mention those AIG bonuses in the hallowed halls of Congress.
Ssssssh! Never again mention those AIG bonuses in the hallowed halls of Congress.

All they could talk about in Congress a couple weeks ago was the AIG executive bonus issue.

The vigilantes in Congress were going to tax ‘em. Grab ‘em. Put ‘em back in the U.S. Treasury where they belong. And maybe tar and feather the execs while they were at it. It was the most important issue of the century.

Then it all went away, mysteriously replaced by the kind of eerie silence found only at the National Library.

Daniel Schwartz, a Hartford employment law attorney, may have an explanation for the new, quieter, more gentle tone in Washington, DC. It all revolves around the case of a Connecticut-based company called Mortgage Lenders Network that found itself in a situation remarkably similar to AIG:

The company had built a nationwide presence by making subprime loans and was in the midst of building a big new headquarters in the state. But by late 2006, it was going through some financial difficulties as credit lines came to a halt and then it allegedly failed to pay some employees commissions–at least $1.6 million total. (These were, after all, the same employees, who participated in the company’s subprime lending practices.)

Ultimately, MLN filed for bankruptcy. What did the state do then? It had an investigator from the Department of Labor look into the situation and ultimately issued an arrest warrant for the Company’s president back in March 2007 for failure to pay wages and sales commissions on time.

Schwartz concludes:

“…if the State was willing to go after an employer for failing to pay just $1.6M in wages and sales commissions, is it fair now to suggest to employers in Connecticut, like AIG, that they can now simply ignore obligations they make to their employees because they are going through financial difficulties and can’t really afford to pay them?”

Speak a word of those bonuses now and Nancy Pelosi will put her index finger before her lips and personally tell you to sssh!

Source: Connecticut Employment Law Blog via WSJ.com

Cavuto goes crazy, screams at Democrat congressman during interview over excessive pay

Yesterday Fox Business Channel’s Neil Cavuto treated a Unites States Congressman with all the respect he deserved. None.

First the Fox host lost his composure. Then he lost his voice. Cavuto went crazy when pathetic Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) couldn’t or wouldn’t and certainly didn’t answer a simple, straightforward question about the congressman’s bill to restrict wages for Amerian workers.

“The Constitution never gave you the damn authority of telling anyone what they should make…,” Cavuto raged. “The Constitution never gave you the authority to blithely come in here and arrogantly set pay for people you don’t even know. And, you don’t have the guts to come back at me and tell me what you think adequate pay range is.”

As the Orlando Sentinel reported on the bill, “The U.S. House is expected to vote today on a measure aimed at halting the payout of “unreasonable and excessive” bonuses to employees of financial companies that received federal bailout money.”

“The bill — a brainchild of U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando — would let the Treasury Department and financial regulators set standards to avoid a repeat of the outrage over AIG, the insurance giant that paid $165 million in bonuses to executives after it got more than $180 billion in bailout funds.”

Other questions Grayson probably can’t or won’t answer:

Have you stopped beating your wife? What is the distance from the sun to the moon? What is pi? And finally, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

Barney Frank wants to be your boss, set your salary, tax you retroactively, schedule your bathroom breaks

Barney Frank at a recent hearing. Oh, wait. Our mistake. That's actually Joseph Stalin overseeing the Soviet Union.
Barney Frank at a recent hearing. Oh, wait. Our mistake. That's actually Joseph Stalin overseeing the Soviet Union.
Barney Frank, the ignorant, rumpled, socialist gnome who screwed this country’s financial system into the ground, now wants to be your boss. Of course, he’s never demonstrated any personal ability to micromanage an economy, but he thought he’d give it a whack after reading about Joseph Stalin’s incredible success in the Soviet Union.

Here’s how Byron York explains it in the Washington Examiner:

“…the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

The purpose of the legislation is to “prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards,” according to the bill’s language. That includes regular pay, bonuses — everything — paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.

In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is “unreasonable” or “excessive.” And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate “the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates.”

Tim Geither, an ineffective, unelected appointee, gets to decide what’s unreasonable or excessive? Take a long, hard look in the mirror, Tim. Then hand it over to Barney and let him take a look, too.

Those images you see — that’s what unreasonable and excessive looks like.

Source: Washington Examiner

AIG exec offers scathing public resignation, rips management and congress

Keep your cotten pickin' hands off Jack DeSantis' AIG bonus.
Keep your cotten pickin' hands off Jack DeSantis' AIG bonus.
Don’t get on the wrong side of Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president at A.I.G. Well, to be more precise, Jack’s a former executive vice president, because he just publicly resigned in a scatching op-ed piece in Tuesday’s New York Times.

He said “we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials.”

“I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.”

He continued:

“We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.”

But the part we loved most was when DeSantis said he would not return his $742,006.40 bonus. Instead, he said he’ll donate ever after-tax dollar to charity because he doesn’t “want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget.”

When Jack is making those charitable donations, we hope he remembers the IHateTheMedia.com Fund for Undercapitalized Bloggers.

It’s for the children.

Source: New York Times via CBS News

ACORN takes “working families” on magical misery tour

A few dozen protesters showed up over the weekend at the homes of AIG executives to demonstrate their outrage and class envy. All that was missing from the mob were pitchforks and torches.

“The politicians who are creating this distraction from their own role also voted for the very legislation that enabled contracted bonuses to be paid by companies like AIG that received government bailout money,” Columnist Tom Sowell observed. “If members of Congress can’t be bothered to read the laws they pass, then they have no basis for whipping up lynch mob outrage.”

The Connecticut chapter of a “progressive” activist group called Working Families Party organized the tour of mansions and invited the gaggle of compliant reporters.

Working Families (which seems to consist only of non-working people) describes itself “a coalition of labor and community groups”. Ah yes, good ol’ community organizers like ACORN out promoting “social justice.” But don’t worry about the death threats. As the WFP press release states, “For the most part, those who got off the bus and approached the homes of the executives kept their anger in check.”

Just once we’d like to see protesters (followed by a herd of reporters) parading in front of the homes of those actually responsible for this mess. Like Democratic Congress-tools Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Source: Connecticut Post, Real Clear Politics

Geithner admits AIG bonus plan was his baby, DeMint wants him fired

Just a few short weeks ago, we were told that Timothy Geithner was “the only man who understands how the TARP works.” His nomination was just toooooooo important to fail. The fate of the world rested in his capable hands.

Uh-oh. Now we find out he was the Einstein behind the AIG bonuses. It was his baby, baby.

Keep in mind, the number of Republicans who voted for this fiasco could meet in a phone booth.

Republican Senator Jim DeMint has had enough. He’s had it up to here. He’s calling on President Obama to cut his losses and send Geithner off on an early retirement before he does any more damage.

The first video shows Geithner ‘fessing up. The second video shows DeMint freaking out.

Irate Republican congressman rips Democrats over bail-out. You’ve never heard anything like it.

This is the most honest, remarkable, refreshing speech you’ve ever heard on the floor of the House of Representatives.

We’ve never heard of Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican from Michigan, until now. But we have a feeling we’ll be hearing a lot more from him in the future.

Here’s how McCotter ends his speech:

“Here’s the sad reality of where we are today. In a time of crisis they passed the Wall Street bailout, the nightmarish prognostications of myself and others have been exceeded. Now what we find is an attempt to cover ones tracks with another bill in a time of crisis that will leave no one–no one–safe from the hand of the taxman when the politicians come to cover their tracks at your expense. The public deserves better. The public deserves transparency. We cannot fail them again.”

Anyone seen our checkbook? We’re thinking of sending a McCotter a campaign contribution. This is the kind of guy we need to keep in Washington, DC.

Source: Breitbart

Olbermann, Leno admit the awful, embarrassing truth

Did you catch habitual liar Keith Olbermann on the Tonight Show the other night? We didn’t think so.

The only thing interesting about it – other than Jay Leno’s continued race to the left – was the moment when Keith and Jay confessed to the fact that they are embarrassed by the their employers.

It went like this:

LENO: Can I ask you a dumb question? It’s called American Insurance Group? Is that the name?
OLB: I believe that’s it, yes.
LENO: Is this even an American company? Or is this one of these phony things where you’re chopping down trees and you call yourself The Evergreen Preservation Society?
OLB: It’s a brand name.
LENO: Is it even American at all?
OLB: It probably was at some point. But you know, when you go to initials, as you know, its usually a sign something’s changed. Just going by your initials you really don’t want to be identified as the company anymore.

What a bonehead. Would someone please point out to Olbermann that his employer is one of those companies that goes by initials instead of its full name.

And then would someone please point out to these two financial geniuses that it’s actually the American International Group, not the American Insurance Group.

Source: NBC (formerly the National Broadcasting Company)

CNBC’s Haines and Burnett turn on Rangel about his tax problems


Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) didn’t know what he was getting into when he stepped in front of the CNBC cameras early this morning. Hosts Mark Haines and Erin Burnett invited the congressman on the show to discuss why he backs legislation to disallow the AIG bonuses.

First, Mark and Aaron jumped on Rangel about changing the compensation plan for a company in the middle of the game. But after Rangel was given a chance to defend his actions by claiming that AIG employees “violated the public trust” and “destroyed the economy,” the fireworks began as the conversation took a turn as Mark Haines went after him with a vengeance about his own alleged tax problems.

Haines turned the conversation with this: “With all due respect, congressman, when you talk about violating the public trust, you’ve had some tax issues of your own.” And that’s when the real fun and games started.

We love it. Some in the mainstream media are starting to grow a pair.

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