Dear Congress: Me or AIG, What’s It Gonna Be?
Another day, more day-late-and-$165-million-dollars-short displays of rage by all of you aimed at AIG. I heard one news report tonight that you’re “trying to get out in front” of the national anger over the undeserved-- to put it mildly-- bonuses that taxpayers ended up funding for the insurance conglomerate. Well, you’re a little late. But if you’re interested in looking toward the future, let’s talk. Not AIG’s future, by the way. Your future. In elected office.
Here are some matters on which you’ll be judged by a much larger than usual number of your constituents next November. Pay attention. Things are different now. That 98-percent re-election rate for House members isn’t going to hold up this time, no matter how many new highway overpasses for your district you larded onto a spending bill. The big question is, where are your allegiances? To the regular people you represent, or to big financial and corporate interests writing checks for your campaigns?
Let’s break it down:
• How did you vote/Where do you stand now on handing out hundreds of billions of dollars with no strings attached to incompetent and greedy financial executives, versus, say, refusing to pass an auto industry bailout for a fraction of that amount unless auto workers made contract concessions.
• How did you vote/Where do you stand now on letting credit card companies charge usurious interest rates, sometime topping 30-percent, that can turn struggling consumers into virtual indentured servants?
• How did you vote/Where do you stand now on the loosening of regulations that allowed the AIG’s and Bernie Madoff’s of the world to run the most monstrous and predatory financial scams in our country’s history?
• How did you vote/Where do you stand now on recent changes to personal bankruptcy laws that are tilted completely in favor of creditors, and completely against consumers?
• How did you vote/Where do you stand now on legislation to help the millions of people fighting to keep up with their mortgages—ugly, deceptive mortgages that lenders were only too happy to offer people during the housing “boom?”
That’s good for starters. In the meantime, spare me your faux rage about AIG. That train has already left the station. You need to readjust your priorities to the middle class American families that have gotten the short end of the stick for the past 40-years or so. And if you disagree and you keep up your patronage of lobbyists and fat cats and greedheads.. well, then you’re all just more Bernie Madoff’s in cheaper suits. With one difference…. We couldn’t vote Bernard Madoff out of office. But you… we can.
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Comments: 15
I appreciate your perspective here. You frame the issues in a clear and concise way. Unfortunately, none of your bullet points appear on ballots. Citizens must work through their delegates, which requires time consuming phone calls and letters. While worth the time, most people won't take it. I am grateful to people like you, who have access to the public, that will take the time to draw attention to these issues and possibly encourage constituents to proactively participate in the decision making processes ahead. Thank you.
JIM YOU ARE AWESOME! Thank you for inspiring me to think twice at the ballot box next November.
LFJ
HI JIM,
I HEARD THIS MORNING THAT THE CONTRACTS WHICH WERE MADE FOR THE A.I.G. EXECUTIVES WERE DONE IN MARCH OF 2008.
I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT, THE A.I.G. AUTO INSURANCE HAS CHANGED THEIR NAME TO ' 21ST CENTURY INSURANCE ' AS OF LAST MONTH.
I WONDER WHAT ELSE HAVE THEY CHANGED IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS IN ORDER TO HIDE THE FACT THAT THIS ALL SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN PLANNED LONG AGO.
The gov is in bed with those big corps, and both sides are treating consumers like fools, or cash cows (forced).
AIG get itself into the mess, and would die if not for the bailout (aka taxpayer) money. Now they have the guts to ask for bonus within the contract.
They are NOT up to the job, the contract is not really valid anymore.
How did you vote/Where do you stand now on voting for $12.8 billion in earmarks (i.e. BONUSES!) of the recent $410 billion omnibus appropriation bill? Let's see now........$12.8 billion is 3.1% of $410 billion, while $165 million is 0.1% of $165 billion, the size of the AIG bailout!
This is not presented as opinion, but just two very simple mathematical facts in the relentless pursuit of truth.
I just read that AIG thinks that the bonuses are "relatively small compared to the government's $700 billion bailout fund". That sounds similar to the logic the White House offered when telling us that we need to look beyond the earmarks for now and that after all they only represented "less than 2% of the total budget".
Do they think that playing the game of percentages rather than dollars make this all acceptable? Or that most Americans can't make the calculation to dollars? The earmarks accounted for something like $8B I understand. The AIG bonuses $165M. Call me middle class and a Washington outsider, but that is real taxpayer money to me.
Jim, listening to you and kaity talk after a story, I just have one thing to say. Keep your opinions to yourself.
When you and your co-workers, especially from other new york stations, say something after a story its pathetic. You get paid reporting on other peoples problems and get very over paid for it. Like six, seven and in some cases eight figure salaries
.
Then you all complain about making it to the weekend, oh gee
is the gigantic paycheck not insentive enough to go to work, which for you is 1 hour of reading a script off of a prompter
Why do I feel like we're not being told the entire story? I'm telling you (and you can call me paranoid)this whole thing stinks to high heaven. Are we really expected to believe that Congress just gave AIG all that money simply based on AIG's word that they were going to use it to buy back mortgage based securities? It just doesn't sound right, neither does this big "outraged" act that the government is now putting on to appease us, the taxpayers. It's almost as though the government would not have said or done anything had it not been for the public outcry. There are way too many questions that need answering and we would best serve ourselves by demanding satisfactory answers.
Has anyone got the full picture yet? From Day 1 the Obama administration has been corrupt. They are nothing but criminals. Lets wake up! Obama is truely change that I didn't want
No one is happy with the "state of affairs" right now. If things are not better in four years, we can always make another choice.
N. Miller has this right! It just seems that too many Congressmen and Senators "doth protest too much". Each of them who wrote or voted for either AIG bailout or the stimulus bill must be sworn in to answer: 1)What did you know about those bonuses? 2)When did you know it? 3)And why the heck didn't you say something? And if they won't give us a direct answer now, they will answer to us in a different forum in 2010 and '12. (Yeah I know - who in Congress will question them?!)
They all must be sweating profusely - but especially AIG contribution (bonus?) recipients Dodd and Obama, and of course Tim Geithner, the keystone cop who was meant to oversee this. Even their friends in the newspapers and network studios might not be able to find a big enough raincoat to cover them with when all this "stuff" REALLY hits the fan.
Mike H.-You hit the nail on the head, my friend. Somewhere along the way, Congress seems to have forgotten that it is their job to do the bidding of the public. Instead they take our money and roll around in bed with it right along with Big Corp. If anything, this should make us all question just exactly what is the government doing (and NOT doing) for us. I think some real change is in order and I'm not speaking of the kind that Obama promised in order to make it to the White House. It's up to the public to come together and bring about real change because the corruption, in my opinion, goes right up to the top.
I am appalled and outraged about the bonus payments to AIG executives like most Americans are for we the people are footing the bill for mismanagement and greed. I don't understand why these executives accepted this check for a job poorly done. Now that being the case what kind of ethics do these jerks have. As for mysely my company ask the employees to accept a pay cut of 25% to keep the company afloat, which we did. That is why I don't understand the greed, lack of ethics and lack of loyalty to a company that provides them with their livilihood and not wanting to give anything back.
I am appalled and outraged about the bonus payments to AIG executives like most Americans are for we the people are footing the bill for mismanagement and greed. I don't understand why these executives accepted this check for a job poorly done. Now that being the case what kind of ethics do these jerks have. As for mysely my company ask the employees to accept a pay cut of 25% to keep the company afloat, which we did. That is why I don't understand the greed, lack of ethics and lack of loyalty to a company that provides them with their livilihood and not wanting to give anything back.
Jim your perspective is perfect and the readers and viewers ought to print and clip this blog posting and take it with them to work to show their friends and neighbors. We have been led around by the nose for too long!