AIG Execs Get Millions in Bonuses From Taxpayer Bailout

Late in 2008, Ben Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, without any legal authority, bailed out ailing insurance giant, AIG. Bush and Congress approved of the extralegal bailout so much they started bailing out other failing financial giants, and wrote into the law a provision authorizing Bernanke to do what he'd already done. A majority of Republicans in both houses of Congress, however, opposed the bailouts, urging the government to let financial giants suffer from their own foolish policies.

In some sense you can't blame Bernanke, as it was the Keynesian inflationary polices of his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, that encouraged these financial giants, along with a little help from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which "guaranteed" the loans) to make hundreds of billions of dollars in foolish loans to people who couldn't afford to borrow in the first place. Bernanke, Bush and congressional Democrats bailing out the financial giants that government policies encouraged to lend foolishly demonstrates how one government intervention leads inevitably to another. As Yoda said, once you turn to the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny. Keeping in mind Yoda's advice--and the entire history of federal government regulation, starting with the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which Congress passed allegedly to lower railroad rates but which actually raised the rates, just like the Cable Reregulation Act of 1992 raised rather than lowered cable rates--it comes as no surprise that Fed inflation and Freddie Mae and Fannie Mae "loan guarantees" would lead to multi-trillion dollar federal bailouts.

Obama and the new, more-Democrat Congress have done a great job of continuing the failed policies of Bush, Bernanke, and the slightly-less-Democrat Congress of 2008. So it should come as no big surprise either that the executives at AIG are taking some of the $170 billion that the Fed and Congress spent to bail out AIG and paying $121 million in bonuses to corporate executives (themselves) and other employees. I mean, what's $121 million anyway, when Obama and Congress plan to spend about $8 TRILLION of your money this year? I mean, heck, that $121 million isn't even 10% of the $170 billion bailout. Why not skim 7% right off the top of the bailout to pay themselves for their good job in securing the $170 billion in the first place? I mean, if they hadn't gotten Bernanke, Bush and Democrats to bail them out, why, they would have had to have declared bankruptcy, and gone into receivership. The bankruptcy judge would have appointed a trustee to run the company, and the trustee surely would have fired all of the executives as part of cutting out the deadwood at the company and slimming it down for continued operations as an actual for-profit business. Those executives worked hard to save their jobs at the taxpayers' expense. They actually had to call Bernanke on the phone and ask for a bailout! That's tough work, no doubt, and worth every penny of the $121 million of your money that they stole from the taxpayer bailout of AIG to bail themselves out.

It's funny--or at least ironic, albeit sad--that liberals routinely rail against "the rich" and "Big Business" and then use taxpayer money to bail out both the rich and Big Business. Obama has already said that he thinks Congress should spend another $1 trillion or so on additional bailouts of the financial institutions wrecked by disastrous government policies, so don't be surprised if on Wall Street, the year 2009, while a horrible year for the stock market (which has, since Obama took office, fallen some 25%, from above its 2003 level all the way down to its 1997 level), shapes up to be the Year of the Big Bonus for executives of failed financial institutions. Ain't socialism grand?


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15AIG.html?th&emc=th