President Obama Says AIG Bonuses An ‘Outrage,’ Violation of ‘Our Fundamental Values’

“More specifically, clear resolution authority would have given the government the power and flexibility to remove senior management and dispose of assets in a way that ensures maximum taxpayer protection,”
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I wish they could do this with some cities.

These are all donors to and “friends” of Obama. In spite of his harsh rhetoric Obama continues to throw gasoline on a fire and funnel limitless bailout money to companies like AIG.
I am also more concerned about the billions of our bailout dollars sent to eurobanks than I am about the bonuses. Neither of which I like or want to pay taxes for.
Is it the job of american taxpayers to bailout euro banks too. This happened when automakers sent some of their bailout money to divisions overseas as well.
No wonder they tried to keep the exact distribution so secret. This travesty, begun in the Bush administration, but exacerbated by Obama administration. Obama explicitly requested Bush spend only half of the bailout money and leave the rest for him to spend in his “COMPREHENSIVE PLAN”
which so far consists of pork, kickbacks, spending into debt beyond our wildest dreams, for generations to come. Oh yeah, I forgot a small portion of the spending was actually considered stimulative, but overall his plans, or lack thereof have fueled the economic disaster.
I don’t care who you think is responsible for it, that argument is irrelevant now.
Obama campaigned on reigning in earmarks and spending and so far has spent record amounts in record time , when we can least afford it.
I don’t want to hear his sanctimony over AIG until he cleans up his own act and spending proclivities.
Obama has no coherent plan, but don’t forget to catch him on Leno this week, which I hear he is going to do. His self promotion priorities never fail.

Where’s the outrage over the Postmaster’s bonus?

I wonder if President Obama tried any behind-the-scenes tough diplomacy with the AIG execs to try to get the bonuses back.
You know, did he extend an open hand to convince them to do what he wanted them to do?
Or did he immediately decide to use the populist outrage method to keep people mad at someone other than him?

So why did he allow it to happen. Someone was not doing their homework. They should have had stipulations that the taxpayers money was not going to go for bonuses. These companies have a history of this already, just looking at what the other CEO’s have done with our money. Meantime, the AIG CEO’s ate getting millions and the average citizen will only see their income go up $13 a week.There is something wrong with this picture. When are they going to get it right or make it right?

Didn’t Gibbs tell you, Jake Tapper, they were sure they knew where AIG was spending their money?
I’m pretty sure he told you that about two weeks ago at the press briefing.
Obviously, they don’t know where AIG is spending its money, if they didn’t know these bonuses were coming up.

Wow…..
At least Obama is trying to keep some type of control over the bailout money.
Bush just doled it out no questions asked.
Hypocrisy has risen to unprecedented levels in here.

Where’s the transparency?
When did the Obama administration know AIG money was being spent overseas and on big bonuses?
Before AIG got billions more in bailout?

Isn’t is a shame that Franks, Pelosi, Obama weren’t outraged when Fannie and Freddie were handing out home loans to people whether they could afford it or not.
Looks like faked outrage to me.
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Are you kidding? They couldn’t work themselves up to even *fake* outrage that Fannie and Freddie cooked their books to get the executives bigger bonuses.
Jamie Gorelic and friends of Obama Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, and Rahm Emmanuel were all around for that expensive fiasco.

Yeah, although it would have been legal to do it as a condition of the money he gave AIG, but is illegal to do it now. But hey – who cares what the law says!
Posted by: Plumber | Mar 16, 2009 1:13:23 PM
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when its MY money. yeah who cares what the law says. I agree 100%

Yes, here we go.
March 2:
TAPPER: Two questions, one on AIG and one on CIA. AIG, is the administration confident that it — that it knows what happened to the tens of billions of dollars previously given to AIG?
GIBBS: Is it confident — I’m sorry?
TAPPER: That they know — that you guys know what happened to the previous billions before you hand over this next $30 billion.
GIBBS: Yes — yes, the — I mean, I don’t think it’s a — well, obviously, you’ve got a huge insurance company that is losing money, not the least of which because of its sheer size and sheer size and decrease in the growth in our economy. It experiences a far bigger drop, largely because of its size. But, again, the steps that — that Treasury and — and others took were to ensure a larger systemic problem wasn’t one that we had to deal with here today in letting something just die.
TAPPER: But in terms of specifically the — I guess it’s like $150 billion before, you guys are confident…
GIBBS: Yes.
TAPPER: … that you know where — OK.
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Apparently their confidence in their knowledge was misplaced.

Isn’t is a shame that Franks, Pelosi, Obama weren’t outraged when Fannie and Freddie were handing out home loans to people whether they could afford it or not.
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More than the home loans, where was the outrage when Fannie and Freddie cooked the books to allow for large bonuses in tens of millions for the likes of Frankline Raines, jamie gorelick, RAHM EMMANUEL (who sat on the board of fannie/freddie)
Not to mention what hypocrites for Dodd and Frank in particular who took special loan deals, received campaign donations, and donations to their pet groups that then gave the money back to the campaign, and so on, from Fannie and Freddie while protecting them from regulators and legislation intended to head off the housing crisis.
Where is the outrage that these two are still in office. Where are the ethics investigations? I am betting Pelosi will investigate Frank with the same fervor that she investigated the other tax cheat Charlie Rangel, and find no problem.
Where is the outrage over the fannie/freddie bonuses? Where are the investigations?
Hypocrits, outrage for soundbite politics. NO reform will take place while these people are in office and continue to take payoffs with impunity.

Do your homework, Talmag. President Bush repeatedly attempted to install a super-regulator within the Treasury Department to overseen Fannie and Freddie, and explicitly warned the congress that those two entities were creating a serious risk to the nation’s credit markets. These warnings and proposals began in 2001, and continued every year thereafter (watch the eschange between Snow and Barney Frank on video). The Democrats–including Barack Obama–opposed these proposals, and killed them.

Talmag… “President Bush had 8 yrs. to do something as it was happening for many of those years.”
Apparently you don’t do your homework… and you are being blindly loyal to Obama without researching your facts. Bush did try to do something about it in his 8 years as President. Did you not know that Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson (former CEO’s of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) were part of Obama’s campaign. This is after the fact that, as Clinton’s cronies, they had walked away with millions and millions of dollars after having run therm into the ground. Google the facts. These are Clinton and Obama’s pals and buddies. But that is not to say Bush is blameless either. There is plenty of blame to go around.

From Gateway Pundit:
“For many years the President and his Administration have not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) but also put forward thoughtful plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties. President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted.”

“Violation of our fundamental values?” You voted for this bile-out..Imputing your “values” in corporate policy now is only going to make it worse..Billon dollar bile-outs..Billion dollar stimulus bills, WHERE IS YOUR EXIT STRATEGY ON THE WAR OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE OBAMA, makes me truly believe that the Democrats and Obama are out of control..Just hope to have another chance to vote in 2010 and 2012.

when its MY money. yeah who cares what the law says
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Yeah – I love the smell of anarchy in the morning. Go For It!

Obama’s job approval rating has slipped from 64% in February to 59% currently, while disapproval has jumped from 17% to 26% over this period.
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It’s time to read another teleprompter in front of an audience.

Kat — what do you expect when you’re overseeing the decline of an economy that was on a path to another Great Depression, and the conservative media (Fox, CNN, CNBC, et al) and the GOP are consistently lying about your policies and programs.
All while you are trying to stop the slide.
The

Obama’s job approval rating stands at 64% in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Monday. That rating is down 3 percentage points from mid-February.
When asked about the economy, 59% of respondents approve of how Obama’s performing, with 40% disapproving.
And this is during an economic crisis while the opposition, and most members of the media, distort Obama’s policies and programs.
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Wow a CNN poll that favors Obama, who could have guess it!
Rasmussen has him at
56% overall approval
43% overall disapproval
36% strongly approve
32% strongly disapprove

By the way Mr. President,
$165 Million out of 170 Billion is 0.1%
When it came to earmarks, you & Chuckie Schumer seem to think these numbers didnt matter. Chuckie said American don’t care.
You guys care to rethink that position now?

“We have run data on CRA lending and where loans are located, and we found that only six percent of all higher cost loans were made by CRA-covered institutions in neighborhoods targeted, which would be low to moderate income neighborhoods targeted by CRA,” said Braunstein.
“So I can tell you if that’s where you’re going that CRA was not the cause of this loan crisis.”
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This is a very qualified statement in that it speaks specifically to “higher cost loans”
Well what does that mean? Does that include all CRA mortgages?
In addition the mortgage crisis was the proverbial rolling snowball. It cannot be viewed in isolation.
Even if it was 6% of all CRA mortgages that is still enough to send this economy into disaster.
However I think this statement excludes some of the lower cost mortgages overall, and therefore is misleading in its’s conclusion.

FACT — The AIG “Bailout” was performed by The Fed, and not part of TARP.
FACT — The AIG “Bailout” was not voted on by Congress, or Obama.
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Tom ,
FACT – Tim Geithner was the architect of the orginal $85 billion to AIG.

Mike_C,
“By the way Mr. President,
$165 Million out of 170 Billion is 0.1%”
And by the way to you Mike, that is 165 million out of a total 450 million dollars that AIG owes in bonus money. Do you see the problem now? That is near half a billion dollars. Also, you take that 450 million and you add that to ALL the other companies bonus payrolls (other BAILOUT takers) and we are talking a whole damn lot of money. Do you see the problem now Mike?
If you want to pay them money out of your own pocket fine. But, logical and thinking people do not……Good-day.

We are getting lost in the forest for the trees.
The point is:
Taxpayers gave AIG huge bailout(s).
Almost 100 Billion dollars of the AIG taxpayer bailout went to Eurobanks
Almost 200 million was paid out in bonuses to execs.
I am more concerned over the money sent to europe, which is so many multiples more than the bailout bonuse, AND when did American taxpayers take on the role of bailing out Euro banks……..
ESPECIALLY since these corporation offshoots overseas DO NOT PAY US TAXES ,,,,, WHICH IS WHY THEY ARE OVERSEAS.

question?
Who wrote the check for this. hmmmm.

Even if one argues the first bailout (even though same cast of characters playing musical chairs) happened prior to Obama, and only the second bailout happened after… SO WHAT
What matters is that Obama knew the money was going overseas (, just as Gibbs told Jake)
The taxpayers are hearing outraged rhetoric from Obama , but all he can do is “golly gee whiz, too late”
If that were true how did he change anything, such as drilling in Anwar, stem cell stuff and so on.
He is president, he can fix this, if he wanted to. He doesn’t seem to want to. He hates what AIG did but he loves the president.
(Is this child rearing 101. I don’t like your behavior but I still love you)
AIG sent almost 100 billion taxpayer dollars to non taxpaying entities overseas,
AIG gave us a heads up that it plans to distribute 200 million in bonuses,
The same players, different chairs , all are fully responsible, including Obama who gave the thumbs up to the first bailout even though he wasn’t in Pres. office yet.
Playing blame games is a distraction.
I want the Obama team to get their act together and fix this. Not make it worse, as they have been. Not give us excuses as they have been.
I WANT THEM TO PUT TOGETHER A COHERENT, NON-DAMAGING PLAN TO FIX THIS, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY AND STOP HANDING OUT MONEY.
To insist we have to do something, when that something is gas poured on a fire is ridiculous.
NO taxpayer earned bailout money overseas,…..EVER

I glad that the mainstream media is keeping AIG in the spot light. If they didn’t AIG would get away with it.

Mike_C,
“By the way Mr. President,
$165 Million out of 170 Billion is 0.1%”
And by the way to you Mike, that is 165 million out of a total 450 million dollars that AIG owes in bonus money. Do you see the problem now? That is near half a billion dollars. Also, you take that 450 million and you add that to ALL the other companies bonus payrolls (other BAILOUT takers) and we are talking a whole damn lot of money. Do you see the problem now Mike?
If you want to pay them money out of your own pocket fine. But, logical and thinking people do not……Good-day.
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Tammy ,
My point is this amount of money is in the Chukie Schumer “America Doesn’t Care” range.
Strange , it looks ot me like people on both sides of the aisle CARE A LOT!
Maybe if we all took this attitude towards earmarks, we would have a better idea where these 100′s of millions keep slipping away to.
Ryan,
As usual you fall right into it. My posting of the poll numbers is to prove a very simple point. Anyone can find a poll out there to support their position of the moment. You complain Rassmussen is off, WHO is to say WHO is ON? Obama supporters go to the poll of the day that makes him look best. Oppositon supporters go the the polls that show what they want.
You can argue terminology all day on Geithner. The important point is that he was key to what happened. It is not like he was sitting in the back of the room playing games on his PSP.
After all, this is one of the reasons he was “the man we had to have”. His experience with these kinds of situations was critical ! Yuo can’t have it both ways here Ryan, either his is a big player in this or he is not qualified to come up with the plan (The Plan which has been dumped and revamped and that we are still waiting for).
This is becoming an issue now for the administration.
By the way Ryan, do you agree with Romer? Or is she as out of touch as liberals said McCain was last Sept. ?

It’s a sad day when the President of the United States has to play ethics cop to Corporate America — in this case, AIG. Hey Big Business, Wake Up!

I’ve said time after time that these White House guys have ‘salary envy’..I really believe it.
Yes the taxpayers should be up in arms..but not with AIG, they’re just doing a job..we are getting a worse deal from the government’s wasteful ways.

Obama, and his administration are full of it.
Feigning outrage is what they are supposed to do. This has got to be the most corrupt administration yet. Starting with the pledge breaking, birth certificate sealing imposter, right down to the TAX CHEAT he chose to run the Treasury/IRS.
Does anybody here really believe that Obama , and his criminasl empire are really shocked, and appalled at what AIG is doing. Get real.

Bonuses should be based on pay for performance end results and there should be an ethical considerations involved in the fine print. It is not ethical to accept bonuses that are not tied to profits.

Really now veteran – start a revolution – your ignorance is showing. Obama is our President and need I remind you that it has only been 7 weeks since he took office. He has done more to try and help this country than Bush did in 8 years. It is quite clear that you are a Republican and all you can do is complain. The Republicans are the reason we are in the mess we are in today. A revolution – get real.

Isn’t this an ethics clause violation of some kind, requiring a business to have a written code of business ethics, an ethics awareness program for employees and an internal control system in order to do business with the Federal Government? Even if a company is just accepting bailout money – they should still have to conform to basic goverment regulations in order to do business with the government. Accepting bonuses that are not based on profits is a violation of ethical behavior.

Yes, the money is taxpayer money Charles, The Gov’t gave it away with any rules in how it could be used. The Gov’t acted on it’s own, the citizens of this land did not approve this. Now our Children and their children will be paying for this. The Gov’t is acting immoral and should stop this practice, without better rules.
Lonnie

as usual Obama opened his yap and the markets dropped.
The Dow closed down for the day.

Hmmmmm, why would the President not make a copy of his original birth certificate available? Is he hiding something? What could it be? Why would he send lawyers into court to block availability of this document? Do the American people have the right to view this so-called public record?

President Obama, AKA “Slick” is so out of touch with reality. He´´s a great orator, articulate, clear, and intelligent. He’s to the point of glibness, expounding upon values, ideals and morals that most Americans don’t embrace. We live in a world of strangers and it’s dog eat dog. Throw some meat into a pack of wolves and see what happens. Unfortunately he doesn’t realize that he is squandering taxpayer’s money by attempting to shore up a fundamentally flawed system. One only needs to see the AIG fiasco and then recall how $12 billion in cash was sent to Iraq only to have $9 billion of it evaporate. No one knows where this money went. It will be the same with the economic stimulus. When the government opens its wallet, the wolves start to salivate. This money will evaporate… Guarenteed.

the out rage is when a man as powerful and rich as obama lets his kid brother live in a dirt floor shack and his aunt living off housing and food stamps while he moves his wifes momn in the white house

Obama raised more money than anyone to get elected. He outspend Clinton 4:1 and 5:1 those final stages, and she still beat him in 9 of the last 14 primaries. Reverend Wright cost the money people but they got their man.
Of the 8 Dems wanting to be president in that first television debate only one of them did not have a plan for universal health care.
25% of the Obama campaign money was small donors, the rest comes from these whales with big bonuses and an agenda for their industry. Same number for Bush was 24%.
America is screwed. Until you get rid of that gravy-train you call the primaries, USA will never be free from corporate greed. When Obama refused public campaign funds and won, Obama set back democracy for years.

President Obama needs to snap out of it. What I seem to be reading is that Congress is providing these “bail outs” with no guidance. How is that possible? These corrupt and greedy big wigs already proved they cannot be TRUSTED. We need to vote everyone out of Washington…One by one get rid of them. They are USELESS.

Somebody said “faux outrage.” I’d SO agree.

“While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law.”
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Any law maker who voted for the stimulus bill voted for the AIG bonuses.
The president signed the bill.
Spare us the phony outrage.

I would like to see the media pool start using a wider shot of Obama at the podium so the American people can see him rely on the teleprompter to speak each time.
That would force his handlers to get him to use it less often.Then, we’d get a candid view of his ‘eloquent’ speaking skills.