Mar 25 2009
Americans to AIG: Drop Dead
AGI stands for “Association of Insufferable Goons.”
According to John Ward Anderson of Politico, a new Rasmussen survey reports more than one in four Americans think the
U.S. economy would be better off if the notorious insurance company American International Group were allowed to go out of business. Nearly 80 percent of respondents are opposed to giving another cent of bailout money to the firm.
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. “In surveys released over the weekend,”Anderson writes, “59 percent of those asked said it would be better for the American economy to let AIG go under than to provide federal subsidies to keep it afloat. Eighteen percent said it would be better to provide subsidies, and 24 percent were not sure, the polling company reported.”
“But when asked more specifically if the federal government should give additional money to AIG — which has already received $170 billion in federal bailout funds — only 9 percent said yes, while 77 percent said no and 15 percent were not sure.”
The recent news that $165 million in bonus payments was forked out to AIG executives while the ailing insurance giant was receiving money in the form of a “rescue” by the federal government has ignited a public firestorm. Many Americans are understandably furious over the fact that irresponsible business moguls are rewarding themselves with taxpayer dollars while ordinary citizens are losing their jobs and struggling to make ends meet, with no hope of a bailout.
According to another Rasmussen poll released last week, at least three out of four Americans want executives who received these lavish bonuses to give them back.
Rasmussen also reports only 18 percent of Americans believe they will be the primary beneficiaries of the government’s financial bailouts, while 65 percent say Wall Street will benefit the most. 68 percent said the bailout money was “going to the very people who created the economic crisis.”
With regard to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Rasmussen found that only 24 percent have a positive view of him and the job he is doing. 44 percent have a negative view and 33 percent were undecided.
Where is Howard Beale when you need him?
I don’t know about you, but I was against this bailout sham from the start. Protecting irresponsible behavior only leads to more irresponsible behavior.
Don’t confuse the bailout money with the bonuses.
The bonuses were awarded on the basis of the past Wall Street practice that makes the bonus a regular part of an employee’s salary. Not a wise business practice, and most Americans are aware of this. It does not either reward or punish bad behavior, but is looked at by the employee as an entitlement - something that needs to change.
But the bailout money is not really a bailout, or free money - the government has essentially bought shares in these companies - we OWN them, in other words, and this money will have to be paid back - assuming the firms don’t fail and go bankrupt. It is NOT “free money” - the government’s money never is - there are almost always onerous conditions, control being one of them - that come along with accepting it.
In the case of the first wave of TARP money, the bill was enacted so fast that nobody really sat down and thought the conditions through, and there were several elements - bonuses and executive compensation being just two of them - that were left off.
Obviously, that won’t happen again.
Oh, and if those laws had been properly constructed - the bonuses could have been nipped in the bud - if an otherwise legal and binding contract binds one partner to that contract to an illegal act, that contract, or that portion of it, is not legally enforceable. Had that first TARP bill made such bonuses illegal, they would not have been able to have been paid, and the contracts would have to have been renegotiated with new conditions to meet the law.