CrackedWorld

Image via Wikipedia

What irritates me the most about AIG bonuses? The fact that The President and the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner new about this long ago and said nothing until it was 1) to late to stop them and 2)the public found out about it. Now it’s an outrage. When President Obama and his staff discovered that the public had been informed of the bonus pay outs and of their out right disgust of it. Now its an outrage.

I was under the impression that AIG was engaging in something illegal or on the fringe of the law, as you may have read in my last post here at cracked world. This is what the White House people are leading every one to believe. They want us all to believe that this is some sort of shocking revelation, an epiphany, an underhanded trick by a bail out recipient. But this is not the case, AIG disclosed its intentions for retention bonuses some time ago.

As told in The Mecury News

“AIG disclosed its retention-payment program more than a year ago, and the amount of the bonuses had been widely reported. But as the payments were coming due in recent days, the White House began to express its indignation”

Do I like the fact that AIG is handing out bonuses to, as Barney Frank put it, “reward failure?” Hell no! But this is not illegal by any means. It should be, but those all mighty infinitely wise people in Washington made it legal.

As shown in a Foxbusiness story

While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009″

This opens the door for AIG to pay bonuses to top executives. Though Christopher Dodd denies adding the amendment to the Stimulus Bill he has little for an explanation of its origin.

“I can’t point a finger at someone who was responsible for putting those dates in,” Dodd told FOX. “I can tell you this much, when my language left the senate, it did not include it. When it came back, it

Scooby-Do Dog Detective

did.”

It’s a mystery, quick some one call Sherlock Holmes, Columbo  or even Scooby-Do, it’s a mystery! Oh by the way.

Separately, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org. Also, one of AIG Financial Products’ largest offices is based in Connecticut.

Does this excuse what AIG is doing? Again, Hell No! At the very least they have a moral obligation to decline these bonuses. If these people had even the smallest conscience  they would refuse to accept the payment. I know I know its a million dollars; for some even more. But could you sleep at night after taking this money?

Now lets consider this. The $165 million bonuses total to less than 0.10th of 1% of the $170 billion the government gave AIG in bail out funds.  And the White House is supposed to outraged about this?

• What about the earmarks they fed into the $787 billion Stimulus bill?
• What about the 8500+ earmarks in the $555 billion omnibus?
• How much of those bills did earmarks make up?

I’m sure it’s far more than $165million, yet the Obama team justifies ti by saying its an insignificant amount of the total bill itself in both cases. How are earmarks any different from AIG retention bonuses, they are both inserted so a politician can “buy” their constituents.

A chart detailing AIGs recipients of Contributions is detailed at The Bobo Files.

Now things are looking clearer, it’s a Cracked World.

Tags: Congress, Money, Politics