President Obama on Monday vowed to try to stop the faltering insurance giant American International Group from paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives, as the administration scrambled to avert a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street that could complicate Mr. Obama’s economic recovery agenda.
“In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury,” Mr. Obama said. He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”
Later in the day, a White House official disclosed that the administration would use a pending $30 billion installment for A.I.G. to recoup the $165 million in retention payments to A.I.G. employees in the business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.
“Treasury will be using this facility to address the excessive retention payments made to the A.I.G. Financial Products employees, which Treasury found to be completely unacceptable given that A.I.G. is already surviving on taxpayer funds,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Treasury will be adding provisions to its new facility aimed at making taxpayers whole for the amounts of the offensive payments”…
I think there must be such a thing as journalistic interpretive inertia [a term I just invented a few minutes ago]. This article gives, "… the administration scrambled to avert a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street that could complicate Mr. Obama’s economic recovery agenda" as the reason for Obama’s action. I’m sure he’d like to avert backlash, but there’s another reason for Obama to act that might more important. It’s the right thing to do as our President. Over the last eight years, we’ve gotten so used to political strategizing ["spin"] being the only motive on the table, we’ve lost sight of the fact that the President is the elected voice of the people – elected to represent our collective will – someone who is on our side.
Here’s where the news people are wrong: they think there’s no news in the way you framed it, that there’s only news in controversy. So they whomp up controversy.
Guess what, would-be journalists? If they wrote what you suggested, it would be the biggest news of the week !!! We’ve become so inured to feeling that the Prez does not represent us, wouldn’t swat a fly for us, couldn’t care less.
I believe the bonus payout excesses at AIG are just the tip of the iceberg of what is happening with the other Wall Street bailouts including Bank of America. Working productive Americans are bailing out the same crooks that destroyed our economy along with 45% of the wealth in the world. Now the American taxpayers and our posterity will be forced to live a far lower standard of living with reduced prosperity and opportunities due to the accumulated national debt to fund the bailouts and once again we will pay the price.
Washington has bailed out the banks, Wall Street & their Washington special interests and much of the cost is added to the national debt to by paid by this and future generations while real estate and investments continue to fall. I believe Washington plans to monetize the debt in future years while they tax and destroy our remaining wealth by depreciating the dollar.
To stop this wealth attack, the Campaign to Cancel the Washington National Debt By 12/21/2012 Constitutional Amendment is beginning now in the U.S. See: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67594690498&ref=ts