Rep. Barney Frank "We Own AIG - There Should Be No Bonuses"

Barney Frank On the Rachel Maddow show Via YouTube

Obama to AIG: GIVE IT BACK!

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/16/business/1194838676626/obama-on-a-i-g-bonuses.html

At a time their when their virtually hemorrhaging cash, AIG still employs the excuse that because of contractual purposes they are obligated to pay bonuses to their people, some of whom helped create the financial crisis and requiring the "too big to fail" company to line up for taxpayer cash.


So finally the president and his administration say enough is enough and as reported in The New York Times
Obama is ordering The Treasury Department to “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses”.

The people who worked for the notorious Financial Products Group, at the heart of the derivatives debacle, deserve neither retention nor performance bonus if last year is any indication of their abilities. Andrew M Cuomo, the New York attorney general, said he'd subpoena AIG for names, job descriptions and performance reviews of those set to receive those bonuses. It looks like a big game of chicken but I hope the government doesn't blink. When Treasury rescued them, AIG became beholden to new set rules and conditions. In a time that others have to make major adjustments(homes,jobs,lifestyle), it only seems fair AIG make some too

Thanks AIG

Whether it's rewarding it's undeserving executives with unmerited bonuses(pleading legal and contractual obligations), refusing to indicate how they spent bailout money and helping to create the financial disaster through risky lending, selling derivatives and insuring some bad investments in the first place, AIG is the one stop shop of financial horrors.

AIG must stand for

Avarice
Indulgence
Greed

Once Again, Thanks AIG(for nothing)!

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2009, Year of the Ponzi Scheme

It's official. Where it's Maddoff or Stanford or Cosmo or Theodule, The Pyramid Scheme is alive and well, ripping off individuals, banks, families, even whole nations. While many have lost a great deal of money to deceptive speculative practices, nothing speaks true fraud like the Ponzi scheme. There's every indication that sly old Bernie stopped investing peoples money years ago(13 years ago from all accounts) and that current rookie of the year Allen Stanford used his loot to buy a title, newscasters and a Stadium! Deadcorp once again acknowledges that all time money making scam, making billionaires out of crooks and helping to damage financial institutions beyond repair.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/mini-madoffs-pile-up/trends/

Salute to Brooksley E. Born

Brooksley E. Born


1998 Chairwoman of the CommodityFuture Trading Commission (CFTC) who sought to regulate the Derivatives market and meet with resistance from Rick Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Arthur Levitt. She is classy enough to not say "I told you so."

It's Official: Bankers are Thieves

Today finds me unable to suppress anger and stay dispassionate and detactched. Reading an article from the New York times, my anger was roused when I read an article that bankers who receives TARP monies meant to jump start our economy are instead using them to pay off debts, offer dividends to shareholder, perform mergers and all the same rapacious conduct that got us into our current economic horrorshow. Here we are dealing with a crisis of global proportions and much little like they have in the past decade, bankers have turn this into some magic payday .

Bailout Is a Windfall to Banks, if Not to Borrowers

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/business/18bank.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I mean( inserting rant now) business are collapsing, millions don't have health care, people are losing homes(and everything else), can't send their children to school, buy a cars or start a new business, activities necessary to health of our economy. And against the background of looming economic collapse, a bunch of greedy bankers in an effort to keep the systems going were given OUR TAXPAYER MONEY to help the provide credit and loans. Instead, they are HOARDING money and enriching themselves once again at OUR EXPENSE. Many of these bloated, self interested, self serving banks received these monies with the spirit of helping solve the problem of investor confidence that afflicts us all, but as usual, these ethically challenged, greedy people are busy stripping the copper pipes and fixtures out out of the metaphorical burning house. Henry M Paulson Jr and Bernard Bernanke should be locked in one of the empty vaults they plundered to ensure banks, who contributed in large part to this financial disaster, could go on yet another buying spree of the very institutions they've helped to destroy

To quote the Time article

"At the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton last November, John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, stood before a ballroom full of Wall Street analysts and explained how his bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money."


“Make more loans?” Mr. Hope said. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”

i.e were not going to stop pillaging and looting because the Treasury gave us a blank check.

It brings to mind the toad and scorpion analogy!

If these people are not going to use the money the way that The TAXPAYER, whom lent intended it to be used, IT SHOULD BE PAID BACK IMMEDIATELY, WITH INTEREST!