Hmmm. Is it just me that thinks this is sadly ironic? That we hear the President say on the news that he’s going to try to block the AIG bonuses for top executives, who are guilty of “recklessness and greed”…for the $165 Million they are contractually obliged to receive? After bailing AIG out to the tune of $180 Billion, (billion with a ‘B’) of taxpayer dollars??
Hey, I don’t care a wit about these AIG guys, and to hell with them. They screwed up their company but good, and I’m sure more than one shareholder would like to spend a few up-close-and-personal minutes in a closed room with them. And if job performance is to be the criteria for bonuses, it’s probably more equitable that, rather than receiving a bonus, they should be perp-walked off to prison; straight to the showers to sing the Song of Sodom. Put them between a jailhouse rock and a hard place. So to speak.
But that’s not what has me riled. I’m pissed off that the Prez is using this as an excuse to dodge responsibility and instead foment class warfare. “Yeah, ya see? The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. Ya see how they do ya? Let’s get even with ’em! Tax the living snot out of them! That will help me! That will save the economy!”
President Obama has absolutely no problem sticking the taxpayers with $872 Billion in a ‘stimulus’ bill, (with more on the way)…but $165 Million gets handed out to some executives and he has a public hissy fit.
I feel like Scooby-Doo tilting his head when he hears Grandpa rip a loud one. Hmnh??
Am I the only one who feels like he’s got some charlatan trying to sell him a bag of shit?
“But it’s really, really good shit, Mr. Graham!”
“Oh…well then…if you’re sure it’s really really good…uh…”
FTS! And wait – did I not see the honorable Congressman from Massachusetts, Barney Frank decrying the bonuses on the news this morning? He, of all people, being the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, and the primary engineer of the practice of forcing banks to make irresponsible loans to people who had poor credit rating and/or no collateral…the practice that helped sink the mortgage industry which got the economic avalanche started? Barney Frank is all puffed up with outrage??
Hmnh??
And while we’re on Strange Things In the Press That Keep Getting Stranger…did I or did I not hear on the news today, and please correct me if I’m wrong…Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Fed, and Newsweek’s rated 4th most powerful man in the world…say “”The biggest risk is that, you know, we don’t have the political will,” he said.”We don’t have the commitment to solve this problem, and that we let it just continue. In which case … we can’t count on recovery.”
Oh. Okay…so, as long as we have the ‘political will’ …and a “commitment to solve the problem”…then we’ll be fine.
So what the H-E-L-L does that mean?? By political will, he must mean government solution. Yes? Am I missing something there? Not a free enterprise system, doing what it does best, creating wealth, but government solutions. Regulations, committees, oversight, new laws…you know, government doing what it does best – meddling.
And all we need (aside from an apparently unending reliance on government to straighten out our lives) is a “commitment to solve the problem”.
Let me translate this, for I do speak fluent Lefty: RELAX. LET THE GOVERNMENT CONTROL YOUR LIVES, BECAUSE THEY CAN DO NO WRONG.
Mr. Bernanke went on to say in his 60 Minutes interview: “…the government needs to get banks to lend more freely and get the financial markets to work more normally.”
Wait just a doggone second. Now I know I’m being punked. Ashton, damnit, you got me, ya bastard, where’s the damn camera? Wait, no camera? He really said that? Hmnh??? Wasn’t government forcing banks and financial institutions to lend money more freely…wasn’t that what started the collapse of the housing market and mortgage industry in the first place?? So…once again, the financial geniuses of our time are recommending that the way out of economic instability and insolvency…is to go deeper into debt?
FTS! I say we get a bunch of fence rails…heat up some tar…get a few thousand goose-down pillows….and run these bastards out of town! In the manner they deserve!
Okay, maybe I’ve seen too many old westerns in my day. But damn! Sometimes these days I think that instead of watching the news, I’m accidentally receiving errant transmissions from some distant far-off galaxy…some alternate universe where up is down, good is bad, and nothing makes sense. I mean…surely this is not America in the year 2009!
Hmnh??
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.