The gaping maw of capitalism

posted by The Vidiot @ 7:33 AM Permalink

OK, maybe the headline is a little grandiose, but folks, you have to admit that the whole AIG thing is so outrageous and clear and well, it's obvious who works for whom. (And I know the following is merely stating the obvious, but it just gets me so angry, and the coffee is kicking into high gear and well, here goes.)

Everybody's knickers are twisted over the bonuses being paid out to the very people who helped create the maelstrom. But now we're finding out that the Senate cleared the way for such a thing to happen.

Dodd just admitted on CNN that he inserted a loophole in the stimulus legislation that allowed million-dollar bonuses to insurance giant AIG to go forward – after previously denying any involvement in writing the controversial provision.

He said in his defense (from the same article)

I’m the one who has led the fight against excessive executive compensation, often over the objections of many. I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment but I did so at the request of Administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG. Let me be clear – I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week.

OK, so it's not just the legislative branch that was supporting the criminals, it's the executive as well.

So, we know that the money that was given to them was handed out to various and sundry capitalists

Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are - Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama.

as well as various and sundry corporations to cover whatever losses they may have had when people stopped paying their mortgages.

Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars

Remember, AIG is insurance. SO, those folks who had bought up the mortgages and who saw the writing on the wall a few years ago bought insurance with AIG to cover those expected losses.

Lots of say, "Oh yeah. I know. The system is rigged in their favor" and then we go on with our lives, not really believing it to our core, so we do nothing about it. But how much more blatant does it need to be? They print the money, hand it to one privileged group who then disburses it amongst another privileged group, with the help of another privileged group, and none of it, NONE of it goes to actually helping anybody.

I mean, AIG has gotten, what, around $150 billion and the Louisiana wetlands only need $15-20 billion to get them started towards a healthy level. What is that? A measly 13%? And it would benefit how many people? Millions? Toss in another $80 billion to rebuild New Orleans and you STILL haven't paid out as much as has been paid to just AIG.

So we have a few people getting a lot a money and a lot of people getting no money.

Yeah, that seems right and OK with me. Please sir, may I have some more? Oh, thank you very much. Don't stop, I LOVE having my sensibilities bludgeoned.

Update: Excellent point over at Urban Survival today:

Landry made an interesting point after we agreed that honesty and integrity seemed to be in increasingly short supply in the country of late. He noted that with the executive bonuses, there's a fine line because if government can arbitrarily negate written contracts it sets a dangerous precedent: from then on - when contracts can be voided at the government's will, you could get to a point where systemic trust could break down. A most astute observation on his part.

And that's why the bonuses were allowed; because to do otherwise would would be more indicative of the lies of capitalism.

Labels: AIG, capitalism, corporate greed