Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Evil bonuses

According to ABC News, the good folks at AIG kept handing out the political donations, even after they received more than $85 billion in federal funds to keep from falling apart.

Of the top twelve recipients of AIG's political donations, only 4 were Republicans, including John McCain, who received almost $60,000. The top two recipients? Sen. Chris Dodd and Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who together received over $200,000, nearly 63% of what AIG gave to the top 5 people on the list.

No word yet on whether those listed are planning on returning the money.

In a related note, it appears that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, also beneficiaries of recent Federal bailout money, are planning retention bonuses for their own executives; in the case of Fannie Mae, this will be to the tune of some $611,000 each for 4 top managers.

The bonuses were authorized last year by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which seized control of Fannie and Freddie in September. The bonuses are more than double last year's, which ranged from $200,000 to $260,000.

It will be nice to see Barney Frank calling up these guys for a visit to his committee; maybe Jon Stewart can invite them to his show.

Think it'll happen?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

We really have gone through the looking glass:

A business collapse can end union contracts, but AIG bonuses are the foundation of capitalism and without them we will immediately become a socialist banana republic.

Earmarks under a Democratic, sorry, democrat president in a bill is an excuse to take to the streets in groups of as many as 35 to pretend that they will ever make over $250K, and then in 3 years have to pay an extra 2 percent on earnings above that...go john galt, my mullettheaded freinds; Here are some interesting earmarks from the bill, including diaper dave:

Barrasso (4 earmarks, $2.7 million)
Bayh (4 earmarks, $1.2 million)
Bennett (23 earmarks, $18 million)
Brownback (21 earmaks, $12 million)
Bunning (5 earmarks, $735,000)
Burr (3 earmarks, $1.3 million)
Chambliss (7 earmarks, $4.3 million)
Collins (1 earmark, $380,000)
Corker (1 earmark, $760,000)
Cornyn (5 earmarks, $2.5 million)
Crapo (1 earmark, $100,000)
Enzi (5 earmarks, $1.7 million)
Graham (14 earmarks, $9.5 million)
Grassley (8 earmarks, $350,000)
Gregg (19 earmarks, $10 million)
Hatch (7 earmarks, $700,000)
Hutchison (35 earmarks, $9.9 million)
Inhofe (34 earmarks, $53 million)
Isakson (2 earmarks, $1.4 million)
Kyl (3 earmarks, $5 million)
Lugar (10 earmarks, $3.3 million)
Martinez (8 earmarks, $18.8 million)
McConnell (36 earmarks, $51 million)
Roberts (11 earmarks, $2.2 million)
Sessions (12 earmarks, $4.3 million)
Thune (6 earmarks, $4.3 million)
Vitter (16 earmarks, $4 million)
Voinovich (6 earmarks, $13.5 million)

The unexpected good that will come out of the AIG right wing whiplash is that it will most likely end the tea parties planned for the Spring -- because Krauthammer said $165 million is a trivial rounding error.

My favorite, the anchoress (who recently "outed" herself not only as an enormously fat person, but also a writer on par with Flannery O’ Connor, and mother of Stephan Crane) stayed up late to be completely horrified by the special olympics comment. My guess is her stand against all forms of political correctness will be on vacation throughout this presidency.

Not so long ago there was this horrible affliction called Bush Derangement Syndrome...

Small Town Doc said...

Here's my take on bonuses: if you are a business, you can pay your executives whatever you damn well please. If your shareholders, or the public, doesn't give a rat's rectum, who cares? If your business is going down the tubes and you still want to pay your top guys an extra "retention" bonus, that's your decision.

UNLESS you have come begging for my tax dollars to keep your business afloat. Then, by all means, it is more than fair that your compensation be subject to a through review by the esteemed Barney Frank.

Heckuva job, Timmy! How can Geithner possibly claim he just found out about this stuff? Looks like a deer in the headlights to me.

Earmarks? It was OBAMA who campaigned so loudly against earmarks, even signing on to DeMint's Senate amendment to have a one year moratorium on earmarks. I guess he was against earmarks before he was for them. Hope and change!

Too bad he didn't have a teleprompter for the Leno appearance--might have saved him some heartache. I thought this guy was such a smooth operator. C'mon--be honest--aren't you having just a little buyer's remorse here?

And exactly what do you have against The Anchoress and her endomorphic expostulations?

Small Town Doc said...

Oh and by the way, the other side of the aisle also feels like Krauthammer. Here's what a few of your Journolist boys have to say.

Matt Yglesias--
But it’s not healthy to just go ’round and ’round in circles over this issue endlessly. If 18 months from now the economy’s still shrinking and unemployment’s at 15 percent, nobody’s going to feel particularly happy about the fact that we stuck it to some scumbags from AIG back in early ‘09.

Ezra Klein--
This just wasn't a huge substantive mistake. It was a small substantive mistake--we're talking about a tiny fraction of the $200 billion we're floating AIG here--and a huge political mistake.


But the rest of us--why, we're just a bunch of mulletheads.

So I guess dissent is no longer patriotic; it's also a sigh of stupidity.

Anonymous said...

Obama was fine on the tonight show and clearly neither you nor the fake nun actually watched it.

From the anchoress (when Bush was in office): "...try to find a member of the “loyal opposition” (aside from Joe Lieberman) who has managed in the last two years to treat the president with the courtesy due both his humanity and his office. Lots of vituperate name-calling, but very little willingness to see Bush as a human being, to present him as one... Liberals have absolutely no problem robbing the president of his humanity, every single day..."

Obama's poll numbers are about 62%, while the GOP congressional leaders are at the lowest approval rating in 14 years -- yes, there is clearly some buyer's remorse for someone. Did shrub's poll numbers in the low 20's for 3+ years indicate anything?

I don't know why she drives me so crazy, but she really does, and if she prints another poem from her clearly disabled son, I'm going to have to go elsewhere for my right wing updates.

Small Town Doc said...

Sigh.

"Obama was fine on the tonight show and clearly neither you nor the fake nun actually watched it."

Whether you or I or the fake nun watched it, I don't think it's fine to commit the verbal gaffe that the oh-so-human Obama did. I mean, it's not "shredding the Constitution" or anything like that (can you give me one example in the last 8 years where your Constitutional rights were actually annulled?). And I have yet to hear someone call him names or "rob him of his humanity." Bushitler, anyone?

It's not the GOP that is leading the Congress--it's Pelosi and Reid and Murtha and Dodd. They promised the most ethical Congress EVAH. And it is COngressional numbers in general that are down, not the GOP's. And if I am not mistaken, they are even lower than Bush's, if THAT indicates anything.

But don't you worry--somewhere, a village in Texas has been reunited with its "idiot," and we are now in the presence of pure, whip-smart greatness.