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| | The Innovation Network Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | AIG Outrage | Views: 448 | | Mar 21, 2009 8:05 pm | | AIG Outrage | # | 
Michael Lemm | | I just received the latest newsletter from Rep. Randy Forbes (my Congressman) and the message really hit home with me.
I am more than ticked at AIG and their giving of bonuses to executives that created their mess in 1st palce .... AND giving billions to Foreign banks. All of it coming out of their bailout money. Meaning "my" pocket and yours.
But even worse .... is the mishandled way that our politicians rushed these bills through with no prudent review and zero plans for oversight included in them. Their whining now about AIG bonuses and payments to foreign banks smacks of hypocrisy based on their own mismanagement of the situation .... AND VOTING THEMSELVES A PAY RAISE IN THE LAST MONTH.
Anyway .... below is what Rep. Forbes has to say. I couldn't have said it better myself. Your thoughts / comments are encouraged.
God Bless,
Michael Lemm
FreedomFire Communications
"Helping YOUR Business.....DO Business"
http://elearning.sitesell.com/FreedomFire1.html
http://Small-Business-Resources-Cafe.blogspot.com
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AIG Outrage
Imagine a situation where a husband goes out one day and, in the midst of the current economic situation, decides to buy an expensive new boat. A few weeks later, the bill comes in the mail. His wife opens the bill, steaming as she realizes what he’s done and sees the monthly payment they will now have to make on top of all of their other monthly commitments. As her husband walks into the room, she throws the bill across the table demanding an explanation. Her husband looks down at the bill. Realizing he can’t make the payments and seeing how mad his wife is, he pounds his first on the table and says angrily, “Honey, I am outraged over this bill that we have to pay!”
This situation seems like a scene we’d find ourselves watching on a Thursday evening sitcom. In reality, it is what we found ourselves watching on the news this week as Members of Congress and members of the Administration pounded their fists and cried “outrage” over taxpayer-funded bonuses that went to AIG executives. In fact, the word “outrage” was used in almost every speech on this issue on the House floor this week.
As I watched those Members express “outrage,” I couldn’t help but be irritated about their outrage. I am one of only 17 out of 435 Members of Congress who voted against every single one of the so-called bailout and stimulus packages under both Presidents Bush and Obama. I did so for the very reason that there was no accountability over where the money would actually go. Without accountability and transparency, we will have waste, fraud, and abuse. In fact, there was not even time to read most of the bills before leadership rushed to pass them.
"Americans also have every right to be angry at Congress expressing outrage over a problem it created itself."
Over the past several months, those 17 of us have been calling for more legislative analysis and debate over the bailout bills, and trying to ask intelligent questions about them. At the same time, the Members who have been expressing “outrage” this week were the ones ignoring the rules, rushing bills through by sidestepping the legislative process, and trying to convince the American people that the world was going to come to an end if we didn’t immediately pass each bailout or stimulus package.
Americans have every right to be angry that their money – money meant to be creating jobs and stabilizing the economy – will instead by used to pay more than $165 million in executive bonuses at AIG. This is on top of the revelation over the weekend that roughly half of the taxpayer money spent to rescue AIG was passed on to European banks and politically connected Wall Street investment firms in the first three-and-a-half months of the government bailout.
Americans also have every right to be angry at Congress expressing outrage over a problem it created itself. If individual Members of Congress would have just read the bills, they would have likely realized what most of the analysts have been telling us – that it would take thousands of government bureaucrats simply to monitor where the bailout money is actually going and how it is being spent.
Just as the husband couldn’t realistically expect his expression of outrage to cover for his own irresponsible purchase, Members of Congress cannot expect their outrage to be some type of “Get Out of Political Hot Water Free” card. The American people deserve better. They deserve analysis and debate in Washington. Indeed, it is time that Members of Congress start asking four basic questions before rushing to pass bailout and stimulus legislation:
1. Where is the money actually going?
2. How do we know it is going to get where it supposed to go?
3. Will it actually work once it arrives?
4. How will we pay it back?
I am confident if these questions were asked, there would be more than 17 out of 435 of us standing up against the bailout packages. While we can't redo the mistakes of the past, we can learn from its lessons. Next week, I will begin outlining the principles I believe should guide America’s leaders through our current economic situation – principles that will help open the debate on these issues, put an end to the bailout madness, and put us on an effective course towards economic recovery.
Private Reply to Michael Lemm | | Mar 21, 2009 8:41 pm | | re: AIG Outrage | # | 
James Booth | | .
Who was outraged when, "In the mid-80s, two of AIG's reinsurers failed. The bankruptcy liquidators paid creditors, including AIG, over several years but meanwhile the amount owed was liable to show up as unacceptably high levels of debt on the AIG books."
... and, "Hank [Greenberg] decided to set up Coral Re [a reinsurance company] to move the debts he couldn't claim as assets into this other company ...
"So AIG went to elaborate lengths to set up a shell company in Barbados, where capital requirements and regulation was minimal compared to the U.S., where American regulators couldn’t readily discover AIG's involvement and where, as an added incentive, it could move money out of reach of U.S. taxes."
From:
- http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11657
AIG has been fleecing the American "taxpayer" for decades,
- so I wonder at the current staged "outrage"
What is it about AIG, which "grew from the Asia Life/C. V. Starr companies founded by Cornelius Starr who started his insurance empire in Shanghai in 1919"* that is being downplayed whle everyone is meant to be "outraged" ... ?
* - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=92675&mesg_id=96045
... or, what is being taken away from "taxpayers" this time while everyone is busy looking the other way ?
JB
Private Reply to James Booth | | Mar 23, 2009 2:24 am | | re: re: AIG Outrage | # | 
Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 | | James,
I have a question for you. Since you brought to everyone's attention that AIG was started as an insurance company in 1919 by Cornelius Star in Shanghai, why is that important today? What does that have to do with the current outrage over AIG executive bonuses?
Lamar Morgan
CDMM - Synergistic Business Marketing
707-709-8605
Attract more customers! Private Reply to Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 | | Mar 23, 2009 2:43 am | | re: AIG Outrage | # | 
Ken Hilving | | As I listen to the argument that those involved with getting AIG into its mess need to be retained to get it out of the mess, another thought comes to mind.
In many cases the actions of these individuals is or should be illegal. Instead of paying them to stay and fix their mess, another approach might solve the need and satisfy the anger. Prosecute these individuals, and then allow them to resolve their previous actions under a work release program. Successfully fixing the problems, undoing the mistakes, and properly accounting for the money involved could count as "good time" on a long prison term. That good time could be adjusted so that when AIG issues are corrected, those responsible will be eligible for parole. To satisfy justice, that plus a return of money taken under false pretense (salary and bonuses while they tanked AIG) would get them out of prison. I would even support a full pardon after 10 honest years after fixing the mess.
This might rehabilitate these individuals, and might even rehabilitate other business people who have lost sight of what is valuable in life. Private Reply to Ken Hilving | | Mar 30, 2009 3:07 am | | re: re: re: AIG Outrage | # |
James Booth | | .
A good and fair question, Lamar
Sorry for taking so long to respond.
The way I see it, Rep. Randy Forbes, or someone like him, is at the front door, ready to make some “political hay” while the back door is wide open and the likes of AIG is stripping what is left from the “taxpayer” – which admittedly, at this point, is not enough to write home about.
The principle of the matter is still important, however, I believe, even if the principal is already missing ?
Too many people will jump at an opportunity to be “outraged” over “AIG bonuses” without ever understanding, or even beginning to understand, what AIG (and other organizations) through individuals like Joe Cassano (AIGFP) have done, and are continuing to do, to this country of ours.
It cannot hurt anyone to do some reading, look into the history of AIG, understand how that company has acted outside of U. S. law for decades and helped skim “taxpayer wealth” from American pockets, and what it is really guilty of, far in excess of any paltry bonuses paid to AIG executives.
Maybe take a look at "The Big Takeover" by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, Mar 19, 2009
- http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/1
JB
Private Reply to James Booth | | |
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