  Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19481 Registered: 11-2006 |
Yet Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Freddie and Fannie execs (and other libs) are not looking for low paying jobs are they? They started the mess, and cost the economy Trillions. | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 4570 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: CC, you and I know damn well that "Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Freddie and Fannie execs, and Any Other Damn DEMOCRAT You Can Think Of" aren't smart enough to devise complicated derivatives and default-swap credit packaged securities--or whatever the hell it is they're calling them these days. The Trust Fund Party had an opportunity to do something about this, and sat on their asses. Thanks for leaving that little bonus loophole, Mr. Paulson! Terrific job from the Bully Pulpit, for not giving a damn about regulation, Junior Bush, MBA! Let the Obama administraion handle it, and we'll wake you when the | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19488 Registered: 11-2006 |
They built on the socialist works of their predecessors. Applying it to housing...they call it affordable housing, it is socialized housing based on the principle of "too each according to need, from each according to ability" | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8710 Registered: 02-2007 |
ahh, so that is your theme for the day -- I guess it has been long enough that we handed you your ___ on the whole fannie/freddie contribution to this mess that you thought you could once again trot it out. tired, failed old argument | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1324 Registered: 08-2006 |
-sj- asks, "What about the 11 million people who have money that involves AIG." Whatever the number, they will be protected by banks that take over salvagable parts of the business and FDIC is there as a backup. The Federal Deposit INSURANCE Corporation has to determine the rates paid by other banks for this insurance. If the FDIC didn't exist, I suppose a private re-insurer could insure bank accounts the same way they insure other things. Depositors could be offered different rates depending on how much they wanted to insure their accounts. This is what's happening. The large banks are using government to allow them to make profit. When the results arent as desired, the large banks get the government to stick the taxpayers with the debt. I am suggesting that government stop propping up failure and corruption. Instead of bankrolling executives and stockholders, some government officials and corporate executives should be put in jail. | ||
Detroitej72 Member Username: Detroitej72 Post Number: 1327 Registered: 05-2006 |
These executives getting their bonuses paid by us tax payers is another nail in the coffin for free market capitalism. You can't trust the fox to watch the hen house. Maybe now most people will abandon the false notion of a free market. You need to have some regulation. Thank you Paulson and Bush for another fine mess... (Message edited by detroitej72 on March 17, 2009) | ||
Flanders_field Member Username: Flanders_field Post Number: 1824 Registered: 01-2008 |
Don't forget to thank the inspirational King of Deregulation: Phil (mental recession) Gramm, who also was McCain's economic advisor during John's campaign. | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1326 Registered: 08-2006 |
Why don't we just offer the AIG guys some jobs in the government? MORE CHANGE "Citigroup Inc.'s chief economist is leaving the New York company for a job at the U.S. Treasury Department, according to an internal Citigroup memo. Lewis Alexander, who has been at Citigroup since 1999 and before that worked at the Federal Reserve, will head to Treasury "to work on domestic financial issues," said the Citigroup memo, which was sent Tuesday. "I think that's not going to spill over more broadly into the economy, and so I think we're going to have a normal kind of housing cycle that's going to last through the middle of this year," Mr. Alexander said in a 2007 interview on PBS." Mr. Alexander will be a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB123732747181462245.html | ||
Glowblue Member Username: Glowblue Post Number: 189 Registered: 09-2008 |
quote: This is an interesting sentiment, considering that it's completely false: http://mediamatters.org/items/ 200810100022 Face it, Randroid, the current crisis is purely the result of unregulated capitalism. | ||
Flanders_field Member Username: Flanders_field Post Number: 1828 Registered: 01-2008 |
"Randroid"  | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1327 Registered: 08-2006 |
President Obama also received a $101,332 Bonus from AIG . Do you think the President should return his AIG money too? This is so much fun reading the sanctimonious posts of the Obamatrons and the President himself complaining about the greedy AIG executives who accepted bonuses while simultaneously pocketing $101,302 AIG dollars. " 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." http://www.examiner.com/x-268- Right-Side-Politics-Examiner~y 2009m3d17-Obama-Received-a-101 332-Bonus-from-AIG For fun, go down this thread and substitute "President Obama" for "AIG executive". | ||
_sj_ Member Username: _sj_ Post Number: 1733 Registered: 12-2003 |
quote: AIG is not a bank and is not FDIC insured. They are an insurance company and that money is backed by the state but each state has limits on what they cover and rest becomes part of the bankruptcy filings, I believe. | ||
Mayor_sekou Member Username: Mayor_sekou Post Number: 2648 Registered: 09-2006 |
I don't get the big deal. So what. This wouldn't even be an issue if the government didn't decide to give a blank check to the finance industries. All this false outrage is irritating if anything get mad at the idiots in Congress and the President(s) who convinced themselves that your tax payer dollars would be best used to bailout all of these failed corporations. | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1329 Registered: 08-2006 |
Mayor, You've got my vote but only if you also promise good weather. | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 1438 Registered: 05-2007 |
Good research/homework Oladub. There is a lot of detailed information to understand and you've provided talking points. Please continue to keep us abreast of your insight. After catching up on some of the particulars, I'll attempt to contribute to the discussions. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 3678 Registered: 07-2004 |
Oladub, I am an independent. Please don't put any words of support for Obama in my mouth, OK?  | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 1439 Registered: 05-2007 |
quote: Point understood regarding the lack of "strings". Outside of that however, would not the finance industry have suffered worse without an intervention? And ultimately would not the alternative of no action have resulted in a worse scenario than we currently see? Just asking. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 3681 Registered: 07-2004 |
I think we're making it worse. Clearly, "too big to fail" as a policy didn't work. Bubbles burst and assets were being traded in such an opaque manner that buyers didn't know what they were buying. What we're doing is injecting capital into these institutions so they can get bigger (???), buy other banks (???), work on creating another bubble (???), and keep trading assets in the opaque manner that was so profitable to them (???). Based on all this, the bailouts (!!!) are taking us exactly in the opposite direction all signs tell us to head. | ||
Mayor_sekou Member Username: Mayor_sekou Post Number: 2649 Registered: 09-2006 |
Okay here is my understanding of the issue, correct me if and when I am wrong. AIG sold a sort of insurance called credit default swaps which protected banks who wanted to hedge themselves against lucrative high yield but high risk sub prime mortgages. AIG however, never had any actual capital to serve as collateral on these insurance policies partially because this market is not regulated. All it needed was a good credit rating. So AIG could sell as much of this CDS insurance as it wanted, it was costless, and they could immediately write these policies off as profit because of this fuzzy accounting practice called mark to marketing. When all of holders of these sub prime mortgages began to default, and those high yield sub prime mortgages began to lose their value, AIG the insurer was called upon to pay out on all of those policies. Problem was they had no actual cash to do so. This caused their credit rating to drop and then they were required to produce collateral immediately for all of the CDS policies they sold previously cost less. AIG wasn’t the only insurer, it was the biggest. Because of the defaults in the sub prime market all of the insurers like AIG were forced to produce capital that didn’t exist, thus effectively causing the collapse of the CDS market. Banks, primarily investment banks, could no longer borrow because the ability to hedge the risks of doing so no longer exists. So to stay operating banks and other corporations that relied on lending to operate have to turn to the federal government. Without them it is conceivable that nearly every major bank and a great deal of corporations without a decent amount of actual capital on hand would fail. I see the need for the fed to dump our money into these companies but its not like massive failures would be any worse than it is now. With or without TARP saving all these companies access to credit is still limited to a very few. Unemployment remains high and more job losses are likely. Federal funding may not save AIG, Bank of America, GM, or Chrysler but yet here we are pouring 700 billion and counting into these failed corporations. Who is hedging the American taxpayer? As long as the feds are willing to keep giving blank checks to these failed corporations who played loose and got burnt I see no need for outrage when these same companies continue to do business as usual. So why all this false outrage about 100 million or so in corporate bonuses when in the grand scheme of things that’s just chump change? | ||
_sj_ Member Username: _sj_ Post Number: 1736 Registered: 12-2003 |
quote: Actually it would worse because it is not only banks who AIG has as customers. Too Big to Fail is not the policy that failed, the policy that failed was letting them get that big in the first place. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 3684 Registered: 07-2004 |
"Too Big to Fail" is not the policy that failed, the policy that failed was letting them get that big in the first place. Chuck and chuckmoot. | ||
Jiminnm Member Username: Jiminnm Post Number: 1785 Registered: 02-2005 |
Mayor, that is almost it. AIG had to also place certain levels of collateral with the institutions where it insured those swaps. Apparently the amounts were so huge that the insureds also demanded collateral in the event AIG couldn't fully pay off. As the markets and real estate tanked, the value of the collateral declined so much that AIG had to add more collateral. It's estimated that $30-50B of the TARP funds AIG received has been paid to banks (many of whom also received TARP funds) and other insureds as additional collateral. Had AIG been unable to pay the added collateral, it is quite possible that several banks would have failed without more TARP funds then they recieved. Your comment about the amount of AIG bonuses is also right on. I'm no fan of AIG, but the payments under those contracts were retention bonuses that were to be paid if the employee stayed for the specified term. These were signed in early 2008. The government (i.e., us) are the effective owners of IAG and my question is why isn't the govt. acting like it? Why didn't the Feds know about these liabilities before they gave money to AIG? Why didn't they force the Board and management to renegotiate the contracts before payment was required (which likely would have been voided in bankruptcy)? The time to address this issue was before the US loaned money to AIG, or at least before the contractual obligations were met. It's too late now. For those who think that AIG should have just willfully violated an apparent legally binding contracts, I expect you're also posting similar thinking on the Kenyatta foreclosure thread on the Detroit side saying it's perfectly OK to walk away from your mortgage if the value of your house declines to less than the mortgage amount. After all, the mortgage is just a contract. I haven't read one of the retention agreements, but Connecticut law on employment contracts allows double damages and atty fees if a court finds that the employer unreasonably withheld payment under the contract. So, if AIG didn't pay and lost in court, employees would be entitled to 3-4 times what they're now receiving. It should have never come this far, but now we're left with the only two options that now exist. Ask the employees to voluntarily return the money (which some have done), or tax it away from the recipients (which some Senators are threatening to do). Unfortunately, those in Congress and in the Bush and Obama administrations who should have handled this better are not similarly penalized. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19502 Registered: 11-2006 |
Face it, the government messed up again (surprised??). Although it is hard to believe that it was a mistake when Dodd put in an amendment to the bailout bill that specifically protected the bonuses. Far more scary is congress passing "emergency legislation" to confiscate 95% of an individuals income (bonus in this case). What a scary slippery slope that is. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8718 Registered: 02-2007 |
actually, bats, you have it EXACTLY backwards, as the blatantly anti-Dodd WSJ reported recently | ||
Detroitej72 Member Username: Detroitej72 Post Number: 1345 Registered: 05-2006 |
Neo-cons, check this out:http://www.yahoo.com/s/1045644 There is more to the story that FauxNews didn't tell you. | ||
Oladub Member Username: Oladub Post Number: 1330 Registered: 08-2006 |
Detroitej72, Good find. Cris Dodd is the only candidate that AIG gave more money to than Obama. He admits he screwed up by allowing his AIG contributors to get huge bonuses. "On Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., acknowledged that his staff agreed to dilute the executive pay provision that would have applied retroactively to recipients of federal aid. However, Dodd said he was not aware of any American International Group Inc. bonuses at the time the change was made." I went to opensecrets.com to find out who else might have contributed to his campaign. It looked like a who is who list of TARP recipients and constitutes a huge chunk of his $1.8M of total donations. AIG was way down in eighth place. http://www.opensecrets.org/pre s08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid =N00000581 I would think that FauxNews would be glad to dig this up except that readers might also ask which Republicans received such similar bonuses. | ||
Detroitej72 Member Username: Detroitej72 Post Number: 1361 Registered: 05-2006 |
John McCain, amongst others, received more than Pres. Obama. I heard today on Thom Hartman's radio show. Do a google search, its not to hard to see where, ironically, Republicans have out numbered Dems when it comes to AIG donations. | ||
Jiminnm Member Username: Jiminnm Post Number: 1786 Registered: 02-2005 |
Sorry, Detej. Obama and Dodd each received more from AIG than McCain in the latest political cycle (nearly twice as much each, in fact) - Dodd $103K, Obama $101K, McCain $59K. Chris Matthews reported nearly identical numbers on Hardball. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics /story?id=7110145&page=1 | ||
Detroitej72 Member Username: Detroitej72 Post Number: 1364 Registered: 05-2006 |
I was speaking of the overall moneies payed off to all politicians as long as AIG has been giving away money. (Message edited by detroitej72 on March 19, 2009) | ||
Jiminnm Member Username: Jiminnm Post Number: 1787 Registered: 02-2005 |
Now, Dodd has admitted that it was he who removed the language in the poorly named stimulus bill that would have disallowed these AIG bonuses. Given this and his other problems, It's starting to look like he may have reelection problems next year. http://www.courant.com/busines s/hc-aig-dodd-bonus-0319.artma r19,0,2281311.story Since Treasury apparently asked Dodd have asked Dodd to so this, the tax cheat Geithner may also be a short timer. (Message edited by jiminnm on March 19, 2009) |
