Posted on 03/19/2009 12:10:57 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Acting with lightning speed, the Democratic-led House has approved a bill to slap punishing taxes on big employee bonuses from firms bailed out by taxpayers.
The vote was 328-93.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
AIG has paid out close to $500 million in total performance and retention bonuses. The amts that are causing all the furor are simply the portion of that due on 3/15. Caught up in all of this, though you disagree, are many regular line staff, as you call them, that are foregoing the opportunity to leave AIG in return for their retention payments. Do you begrudge a person the opportunity to bring home a little extra when times are rough?
If that bonus is now criminalized what do they get? Many, if not all, of these people had absolutely nothing to do with the FP unit. Should they just be cast aside because the mob wants to see blood
Sorry, spunkboy, wrong again.
Any bill of attainder is unconstitutional and illegal, and the requirement to name a person or persons is a fig newton of your imagination. Once Congress gets a list of names, the group or class is named.
The bonus money structure was in place when we got 80% control of the company. AIG was deliberately NOT put into bankruptcy, because it would have collapsed the entire company and sent the world financial markets into meltdown. The goal was to keep the company going until the elements of AIG could be spun off under more favorable market conditions. That would pay the loaned $ 80 billion back and in the immortal words of Hank Paulsen, the American taxpayer would make a profit.
Once the government took the stock deal and passed on the bankruptcy, the contracts were valid and enforceable. That’s contract law in general, and certainly Connecticut State law.
The stimulus bill protected these contracts, and any such contracts entired into before February 11, 2009 by AIG or anyone else.
There are four layers of law that the House violated today. Any lawyer worth his salt would make any absolute killing taking the case of the AIG execs.
The bonuses did not go to reward failure. These execs, regardless of what they did before the bailout, were the key in reducing AIG’s exposure in the credit swap derivatives market by over $ 1.1 trillion. That kept the company intact and afloat until now, and that is why they were paid a retention bomnus, not a performance bonus.
They performed a task, and are due the compensation promised under state and Federal law and general contract law.
You have shown yourself ignorant on these matters. If you shut your piehole you might learn something, but somehow, it is my impression that you think you are already omnisicient.
Express your outrage at Conservative’s rising star, Eric Cantor who vote for this piece of crap. He’s out there blaming AIG for this mess. He needs to figure out the Democrats created this debacle.
The two faces of Eric Cantor. Says one thing and does another.
Why should they? This was money given to them with no strings attached by the Democrats.
What bill are you reading.
Yeas Nays Not Voting
Democratic 243 1 9
Republican 12 159 7
BS.
"These execs, regardless of what they did before the bailout, were the key in reducing AIG’s exposure in the credit swap derivatives market by over $ 1.1 trillion."
Yeah, right. Their job was to have a good handle on the matter in the first place by providing a real valuation of what they were insuring. They didn't have a handle on it then and they still don't. They're just brain dead lying monkeys passing out taxpayer dollars and attempting to consume the same to the tune of their idiot cheerleaders.
Guess no ex post facto laws in the constitution is now to be ignored.
Libtards have no guts to own up to failure, and no respect for the Constitution.
How's wearin' the man's knee pads sport?
I told them she's toast, politically, as far as I'm concerned. No more money to her campaign, or to the County, State, or National Republican Committees of any stripe. No more support, and I will attend every one of her local meetings that I can and pin her down on these actions.
Next step: fax to her WA DC office (Phone: 202-225-2006 Fax: 202-225-3392) on this.
Good source for tracking this stuff: The House Clerk's website (http://clerk.house.gov/legislative/legvotes.html)
What you've laid out is exactly why no one who fancies themselves as a conservative and respects the Constitution, Capitalism and the rule of law could be anything other than outraged at this piece of legislation and the evil, subversive motivations behind it. Period.
I don't, but this isn't just a "little extra." This is people making quarter million and up. As a hardworking, normal guy on the bottom of the corporate food chain, though, I find it difficult to feel sympathy for their plight.
A little more reading material about the bonuses about the AIG bonuses at:
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/the-case-for-paying-out-bonuses-at-aig/
A.I.G. employees concocted complex derivatives that then wormed their way through the global financial system. If they leave — the buzz on Wall Street is that some have, and more are ready to — they might simply turn around and trade against A.I.G.’s book. Why not? They know how bad it is. They built it.
So as unpalatable as it seems, taxpayers need to keep some of these brainiacs in their seats, if only to prevent them from turning against the company. In the end, we may actually be better off if they can figure out how to unwind these tricky investments.
As distasteful as of this bonus bruhaha is, I can't get too worked up about it. In the grand scheme of things $160 million in bonuses is one one-thousandth of the $160 billion the government has already shoveled into AIG. Will that money ever be recouped? Probably not, so what difference does another 0.1% make?
>>Paging Claire Wolfe ..... <<
Paging John Galt....
Paging Henry Bowman...
>>Congress has no business in the compensation business... <<
Hell, Congress has no business being in the Congress business!!
Refer to another of my posts that said we need to recall them ALL...
Guess you and I are the only people around who view this problem identically.
The Republican Whip told freshman and vulnerable members to vote for it.
The consensus is that this is unconstitutional.
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