What a quaint concept.

Re: Marcy's comments via her link, what legal mechanism allows AIG to let contracts with the US government as the guarantor of last resort?

I'm swearing off him. No more for me.

At least for the rest of the day.

How can these be kept secret when We the People now own their ass(ets)?

the rules are different for them- Rick Santelli

Acceptable: Stealing money from the middle and lower rungs of society and giving it to the wealthiest and most powerful

Unacceptable: Voiding sweetheart agreements that can be fulfilled only by stealing money from the middle and lower rungs of society and giving it to the wealthiest and most powerful

Ok, AIG, fine. (I especially liked the part I read today about them being in the insurance business and therefore they're in the business of honoring their contracts. hahahahaha! They KILL me)....

Anyway, I have a brilliant idea. Let them pay the bonuses and then let Congress make an emergency law that all bonuses paid to TARP recipients be taxed at 95% and that all recipients of TARP bonuses will be subjected to IRS audit for the next 3 years.

If Geithner doesn't have the cojones to stop the payments, he has the authority to sic his IRS on them.

Don't get mad. Get even.

Thank you.

They can get the money back, they simply refuse to do so. The elites, political, economic, press, etc. are an interlocking directorate who's aim is to protect and to serve the elite.

I would also point out that Citi was a zombie bank for months and then, literally, in one day, "was all good". I didn't hear much questioning of how that could happen. Either they are lying, the Fed gave them a boat load of taxpayer money under their secrect program to help distressed billionaires or both. There are no other explanations.

It isn't only on the civil liberty front that the administration has shown itself willing to act contrary to justice. In the meantime, much of our press lies either quiet or as cheerleaders for these actions.

I wonder if the difference might be that these AIG Scums have actual individual 'contracts' (sort of like professional athletes), as opposed to fire-at-will 'normal' workers who have no specific signed contracts?

Enlightenment anyone?

Spouting nonsense is not exclusive to Republican admins. Now the Democrats have shown that they, too, are more interested in protecting the rich. "Only in America" are AIG losers compensated!

That the United States is a "nation of laws" is overly-quixotic, don't you think? It seems the de facto position is on where law is simply a tool used by some against others for whatever result (hint: the result is more money in the pockets of fewer, well-connected people).

This is why Congresspeople are not technically "representatives" -- try getting elected to the Senate or --gasp!-- the Presidency without a law degree. Rare stuff indeed. Knowledge of the law, which is something that's supposed to be, on the surface, somewhat ubiquitous and generally understood, is key in politics precisely so that one has a way to manipulate it.

That's why none of this is suprising. These payouts constitute the end-result of a collusion between Gordon Gecko status-climbing greed mongers and the political class that promotes, enables, and until recently glorified them. Manipulation of Law makes that possible. That's the tool. Law is the weapon, a sneaky one since it feigns legitimacy, deployed against all of us by a political class. That used to be a King, in previous times. But there is really no difference, and that is exactly what Foucault was getting at when he declared that in Western politics we had "failed to cut off the head of the King."

And what if someone had the balls (or audacity, as some would say) to propose an entirely new Constitution? One more representative of actual populations, perhaps? No way. USA USA USA we are number ONE! That's why voices like Larry Sabato are drowned out.

[ / rant ]

"The easy thing would be to just say... off with their heads, violate the contracts. But we are country of law. The government cannot just abrogate contracts," - Larry Summers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7945774.stm

Hate to be the one to break it to you, Larry, but not so much, ya know?

Christy Harden Smith asks some ineteresting questions.

http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/03/16/aig-scrutiny-basic-questions-for-media-and-congress-alike/#more-38086

I particularly liked this one.

-- Even if that person may have had an off year the past year, does s/he have a history of substantial value to the company and work in a niche that has long-term value, doing something that is inherently risky and mercurial, and doing it well on the whole? Anyone can have an off year but still present much value overall. But some people get bought off to keep their mouths shut about internal fraud. Questions should be asked as to which some of these may be.

But, to one of your central points, generically, yes. There has been a substantial difference between the way Treasury has been handling the financiers versus how it has handled the auto workers; between how it has handled AIG versus how it has handled GM; how it's handled the financial industry versus the auto industry. And, that has been true from the very beginning.

To Obama, Benake, Summers, and Geithner I charge kabuki. Their outrage is for show. Their claims of looking at every possible loophole falls flat. I simply do not believe them. How they expect the American public to swallow this without a huge political backlash, I'm not sure. I really see only two possibilities. Either (A) they really did want the AIG executives to come out whole. Or (B) the threat Marcy speculates holds water. And, that threat sounds a lot like extortion as someone speculated in her threads.

And, the worst part of (B) is the group in France may not be the only group who can put this gun to the Treasury's head. What the hell else is out there?