More Whines from AIG
Funny. I never heard any UAW employees whine like this when they were falsely accused of ruining the domestic manufacturing industry because they demanded a completely fictional $75/hour.
One A.I.G. executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared the consequences of identifying himself, said many workers felt demonized and betrayed. “It is as bad if not worse than McCarthyism,” he said. Everyone has sacrificed the employees of A.I.G.’s financial products division, he said, “for their own political agenda.”
So the employees of AIGFP hold the entire world financial system hostage and yet they think we should still respect them because they are still Big Swinging Dicks?
exactly they can whack taxpayers but when taxpayers want the names of those who are partially responsible they hide behind angry e-mails
Senator Barney Frank just called it “justifiable anger” What part did Barney Frank play in all of this? Why do they all act so surprised about the executive compensation when they gave away that money with few restricitions.
Names please
To Mr. Anonymous,
Dude, you lost like a trillion dollars. You should have been fired or better yet charged with fraud and jailed. Your company should have gone bankrupt and you could try to collect your money in court — HA!
No political agenda here, just a guy who owns his own company, and lives with the real ups and downs of my own balance sheet. You don’t like the attention and the headlines, it’s called greed asshole. Take your hand out of the taxpayer’s pocket and we would all really care less about your situation.
Maybe someone should point out to our poor downtrodden AIG exec that perhaps AIGFP should not have sacrificed the global economy for their own personal gain.
Does anybody know what Eric Holder is doing?What’s a reasonable amount of time for some major indictments to start?
Digby laid me out with this last sunday :
Well, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous Whiny AIG Employee, listen up:
We now change from The Anger Channel to a more reasoned look at this episode.
Interestingly, the events of the day (particularly the bonus extra-tax) have done three things:
1. They have made clear to everyone involved that the American people are pissed – not only about bonuses, but about the corruption that still rules the roost in D.C. and Wall Street – and that there remains a substantial disconnect between the people and those who would be their rulers.
2. Obama and the Democrats have broken the Republicans’ party discipline. I’m thinking of that old mid-70s Mercury commercial with the guy cutting the diamond in the back seat of a moving Marquis (parodied on SNL with the mohel performing a circumcision in the back seat of a moving car). (Sadly, it appears neither the original ad nor the parody is on line….)
3. This is the first outward manifestation of Congress finding and trying to flex its muscle as an independent branch of government as opposed to being the reflexive rubber stamp, echo chamber, and praise-chorus the years of the Cheney Dictatorship revealed it to be. They’re creaky and rusty, but they’ll get the idea.
scribe, I hope you are right!
But Levin and Whitehouse and McCaskill and Durbin need a much bigger posse.
I can sympathize with the fears for personal safety, but as things now stand, none of us even have any idea whether enough FBI agents exist on the planet, let alone whether they’re looking into this mess.
It’s the sense that these people exploited ‘legal’ loopholes, and will get away with their crimes that seems to be putting people over the edge. That’s never, ever a good situation, and it’s destabilizing to see people get away with antisocial, destructive, reckless behavior that was premeditated and deliberate (and elaborate).
The overpaid AIG whiners are making the autoworkers look like model citizens.
Paul Krugman put up a scathing blog post this morning about the Obama team’s handling of the financial mess in general and the AIG bonus fiasco in particular. Here’s his sum-up:
McCarthyism, and its sister-buzzphrase “witch hunt”, don’t really apply here. McCarthyism and witch hunting persecute people for imaginary wrong-doings. That’s not the case here. We already know that you supposed geniuses tanked the economy. Now we’re just trying to figure out exactly who did what.
Marginally OT:
Today’s WahPoo:
“Holder Tells Agencies To Open More Records
The Obama administration advised federal agencies Thursday to release their records and information to the public unless foreseeable harm would result [SNIP] (AG Holder) issued guidelines fleshing out … Obama’s Jan. 21 order to reveal more government records to the public under the (FOIA) whenever another law doesn’t prohibit release. [SNIP] The new standard essentially returned to one issued by … (AG) Reno during the Clinton administration. It replaced a more restrictive policy imposed by the Bush administration under which the Justice Department defended any sound legal argument for withholding records: “We are making a critical change that will restore the public’s ability to access information in a timely manner,” Holder said.”
http://tinyurl.com/ddfd9r
Who loves it, baby? Dan Metcalfe, for 25 years head of the US FOIA office:
http://tinyurl.com/avdq2x
Nostrildame’s prognostications:
[1] more sunlight than before — actually, on this standard, than EVER before;
[2] more bumbling, stumbling & fumbling similar to AIG Bonus-gate;
[3] more legacy media apoplexica [”FUMBLE!” “Let’s go to the replay” “Whattya think, panel?” “This latest from Gallup” “Now Bill & Glen & a reasoned discussion” “This from a FoxNews poll…”]
[4] Obama gets his own talk show on MSNBC — right after Tweety & before Keith & Rachel;
[5] all good for fearless leader — thus, it follows:
[6] good for us.
As a medical person, I always try to think of analogies from my own daily life, so here’s my take:
I really don’t have a problem with, say, my brilliant brain surgeon or my brilliant heart surgeon making millions of dollars a year and getting a big bonus. What they do is technically difficult, they had to train very hard to get to their current position, they work very hard, and their work does an enormous amount of good.
On the other hand, if I notice that my brilliant brain surgeon or my brilliant heart surgeon has botched a number of their surgeries over the past several years, I’ll probably start thinking that maybe this person isn’t all that brilliant and needs to have their surgical privileges revoked until we can all figure out what’s going on. And if they then refuse to let me see any of the records from the surgeries they’ve done, I’m going to KNOW something’s wrong, and that person’s going to be immediately fired.
And if the jackass threatens a lawsuit, I’m going to have the hospital lawyer say that, yes, you can sue, but if you do, we’re going to have a little chat with the state medical board. These assholes are lucky they’re not in jail (yet). Whining about bonuses is just obscene.
As a non medical person I do object to the exorbitant payments surgeons make. (just as I object to over the top payments to Wall Street fat cats especially when the taxpayers are paying for their mistakes or flat out greed).
While I know there are folks who go into the medical field based on empathy, compassion and a real devotion to healing. I also know plenty of people in that field just for the $$$$$$$. Too many
While I know most surgeons are competent but those who are not are often protected by their fellow surgeons for medical team mates. One friend who died due to faulty diagnosis by several surgeons all walked from any responsibility. Part of the settlement that her husband and 4 children received was that they were NEVER EVER allowed to mention in any public or private way the particular surgeons responsible for her false diagnosis. They received money for their dead mother.
I am thankful for surgeons when one needs them. But I do see a similarity between those on WAll Street who protect one another and those in the medical world who protect one another from being booted out of their fields when they make very serious mistakes.
Martin Gruenberg “criminal activity in these failed institutions”
This guy is clear, concise. Talking enforcement
Financial hearing going on
Boots on the ground ….Uniform regulation…federal regulators
http://www.cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx
McCarthy falsely accused hundreds, smearing them for political gain, while trashing the credibility of Senatorial investigations into real threats of domestic sabotage and corruption. Shortly after his demise, the Senate began investigating organized crime, and a few laters later JFK was shot.
This administration and Congress are investigating, weakly, to be sure, why a global insurance and financial powerhouse and stellar example of today’s capitalism has needed hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to stay afloat in order to defer, so we are told, a larger meltdown of a global industry and the economies dependent on it.
I’d say that makes taxpayers the victims, not overpaid AIG executives.
Thanks ew.
digg is open.