Some AIG workers offer to return incendiary bonuses (Extra)

Obama's comments todayMar 18th, 2009 - 19:06:01

(If the AIG emmployees filed lawsuits, their names would become public, and their individual reputations would be trashed - and some might actually be in physical peril from nut-cases. The contracts were in place when Bush led; so where the hell was Paulsen when he proposed the TARP? It was HIS job to have picked this problem up, and to make sure that the next Admin. knew about it. It does appear like the GOP deliberately left things undone - such as the omnibus bill - to stick the new Administration with it; instead of owning up to the mess that they left)

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OBAMA: I'm the president of the United States. We've got a big mess that we're having to clean up. Nobody here drafted those contracts. Nobody here was responsible for supervising AIG and allowing themselves to put the economy at risk by some of the outrageous behavior that they were engaged in.

We are responsible, though. The buck stops with me. And my goal is to make sure that we never put ourselves in this kind of position again.

QUESTION: Mr. President, a new round of bonuses from these contracts are coming out. What would you say to the American public to quell the anger because people are angry about this new round that's coming out? There's more bonuses are said to be coming for AIG executives.

OBAMA: Well, I don't want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I'm angry. What I want us to do, though, is channel our anger in a constructive way. And the most important thing we can do right now is stabilize the financial system, get credit flowing again to businesses and consumers, and make sure that we change how these businesses operate so that they don't put us in a situation in which, when things go bad, the taxpayers have to foot the bill and when things go good, folks are getting not just $6 million bonuses but $30 million or $40 million bonuses.

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RMMar 18th, 2009 - 19:57:09

Have people already forgotten about the $3.6 BILLION in bonuses given to Merrill Lynch execs immediately before they were bought by Bank of America? This was also done using taxpayers money.

This is actually a bigger scandal than AIG.

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The scandal was lack of oversightMar 18th, 2009 - 20:24:22

As Obama pointed out (in essence) - the problem is the war; since that's why you have the wounded. Bush's Administrations de-regulatory policies, plus Greenspan's keeping interest rates too low, added fuel to the fire. Since the country was in recession in 2008, something should have been done by the 2008 incumbents .... who ALSO passed the buck on the omnibus bill that came with earmarks; leaving Obama no chance to rework it while getting the government funded for 2009. He was stuck with it; and the bigger problem now is the press and bloggers nit-picking on minutae; rather than explaining the scope of the problem. Earmarks are a microscopic fraction of the total; but it's all McCain has to talk about - because he, himself, claimed that he did not understand economics.

Housing starts improved because apartment houses are being built - but it's still a positive sign. Asia has firmed up a bit as well; and that's based on Obama's speaking up, rather than a marked change in fundamentals.

Watching the DJII on a current basis is the WORST possible indicator of what's going on.

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OBAMA: One last point that I want to make. People are rightly outraged about these particular bonuses, but just as outrageous is the culture that these bonuses are a symptom of that have existed for far too long; a situation where excess greed, excess compensation, excess risk taking have all made us vulnerable and left us holding the bag.

It means that shareholders and board of directors have to hold executives more accountable for their compensation scales. You know, the fact that these guys are looking for bonuses having run down AIG begs the question of why were they making that much beforehand when nobody was criticizing them? Everybody thought they know what they were doing.

QUESTION: Do you wish that you would have found out before these bonuses a lot sooner than Thursday so you could have done something more then?

OBAMA: Well, look, rather than going sort of the details of finding it out, ultimately, I'm responsible. I'm the president of the United States. We've got a big mess that we're having to clean up. Nobody here drafted those contracts. Nobody here was responsible for supervising AIG and allowing themselves to put the economy at risk by some of the outrageous behavior that they were engaged in.

Now, keep in mind -- I think it's very important to remind ourselves that there are a whole bunch of folks now who are feigning outrage about these bonuses that a year ago or two years ago or three years ago said, well, we should never meddle in these compensation plans. These are the best and the brightest. They know what they're doing. That's part of the market. And now, suddenly, they're outraged.

And it's appropriate for us to have some regulatory mechanisms in place to ensure that we never have a situation where the government has to step in or you've got taxpayers who are having to foot the bill for other people's mistakes. That requires some regulatory framework, and my hope is that one of the lessons we learn here is that putting smart regulations in place, oversight, transparency, accountability -- those things are not anti-market; they're pro-market.

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Now FOX peddles the garbageMar 18th, 2009 - 21:06:24

Their headline, at a time of financial risk for everyone:

'As Blame Game Deepens, AIG Outrage Could Give GOP Electoral Opening'

There, you have it. The hell with the people and the economy - just vote for the GOP, which sat on these problems for the past 8 years.

Fox News should just register as a GOP lobbyist and be done with it.

Obama's longer-term problem is that he needs GOP Congressional votes; so he can't condemn Bush and Cheney outright - causing the GOP to rise to their defense.

I'm not bound by this constrant - so SCREW Bush, Cheney, Paulsen, and the others who allowed this to happen on THEIR watch. The American people should be furious with THEM; not the guy trying to rescue the nation.

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Dodd should have been much clearerMar 18th, 2009 - 22:14:14

He should have asked for time to check the facts yesterday, instead of declaring 'no involvement'. Very dumb. It's a complex issue; and here's some detail on what happened. Dodd 's AMENDMENT was not the problem; but rather the EXEMPTION passed by others in a conference committee that he was not included in.

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www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-aig-bonuses-dodd-0318,0,235908.story
Dodd's spokeswoman, Kate Szostak, is saying that the accusation that Dodd included the exemption for the bonuses is false, despite reports on Fox News, the Drudge Report, and the Rush Limbaugh radio show.

'Senator Dodd's original executive compensation amendment adopted by the Senate did not include an exemption for existing contracts that provided for these types of bonuses,'' she said.

The exemption that allowed the bonuses was crafted behind closed doors in a conference committee with top negotiators, including some of the most powerful members of Congress -- but not Dodd.

During the conference period, Dodd pushed for language that would require the U.S. Treasury Department to analyze any previous bonuses, according to Szostak.

'At the same time, Senator Dodd supported legislation by Senator Wyden that would tax the bonuses so that taxpayers could recoup some of this money,'' she said. 'Unfortunately, that provision was removed from the stimulus bill in conference.'

'Senator Dodd was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until he learned of them in the past few days; to suggest that the bonuses affecting AIG had any effect on Senator Dodd's action is categorically false,' Szostak said.

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(Dodd's amendment DOES include solid language asking for what's called 'reach-back', or 'claw-back' on moral grounds - this very language is now seen as the legal basis for Obama to go after those payments; and to reverse them. Without Dodd's amendment, that language would NOT have been in the bill - leaving the government liable in AIG employee lawsuits; had they tried to block payments made under existing contracts THAT WERE IN PLACE IN 2008)

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