AIG BONUSES: THE REAL STORY

Jacquerie of WAMToday discussed the need for us to go beyond rage and replace it with focus; she also talked about the Obama Campaign's ability to deflect us from the real issues and have us chase after bogus matters (Rush Limbaugh, the AIG bonuses, NCAA basketball, the White House dog, the White House bowling alley, and the like).

Finally, she stressed the need for us concentrate on issues where we can win. There are issues where our goals might be noble (e.g., the birth certificate controversy) but which we cannot win -- will not win. Remember, Obama wants us to joust with windmills. He wants us to spend tens of thousands of hours -- and hundreds of thousands of dollars -- on matters that lead nowhere.

Of course, it's not always possible to know in advance precisely what's winnable. For example, for various reasons it has become nearly impossible for Obama and Congress to pass additional "bail out" money for financial institutions, most of them big contributors to Obama, Dodd, and other political sleazebags.

One thing we need to avoid is becoming obsessed with single issues -- any single issues -- when backing candidates. Of course, Obama benefits from such obsessions, because it's part of their tried-and-true "divide and conquer" stategy. We want House and Senate members who believe in the Constitution and in traditional American values. If they disagree with us on one or two issues, that's almost irrelevant.

Yesterday, 87 Republican House members and a handful of Democrats voted against the punitive taxation of AIG bonuses. They did so not because they were pandering to angry constituents or because they favored the bonuses. They did so because they knew "ex post facto" laws are prohibited by the Constitution. In other words, we can't be punished by legislation enacted to make a previous act illegal.

If you read Amity Shlaes wonderful book The Forgotten Man, you'll see that Roosevelt's bad side was to enact ex post facto laws. He then prosecuted men, including Andrew Mellon, for legal tax "loopholes" they have used in prior years. If we don't have equal treatment under the laws, we have nothing.

On AIG, I talked at length yesterday with my friend TC, an AIG employee. She is not involved in any way with the credit default swaps that caused all of the company's problems. She was eligible for a performance bonus in her unit, but because of the company's bottom line financial situation she is not receiving any bonus money. She had planned on getting it, but now she isn't. Her situation is much more the norm at AIG than anyone imagines.

Did she earn her bonus? Yes. Is she getting it? No. And there are many, many people like her at AIG. It's basically a sales business, and bonuses are really a form of commissions. Of course, when the overall company is bleeding red ink, good people suffer because of the actions of a few (perhaps a dozen) bad people.

To reiterate: Almost all of AIG's operations in the more traditional insurance business were profitable in 2008, although one operation was horrendously unprofitable, which of course drove down the entire organization's profit performance.

Gee, why isn't the media explaining this the way I (and TC) have? Because the media, aside from FOX Business News and a few others, is clueless when it come to financial matters. They're much better at demonizing than they are at explaining.

AIG BONUSES: OBAMA'S BOGUS "SCANDAL"

"Where there's smoke there's fire." (Anonymous) "But sometimes where there's smoke there's a smoke machine." Never, never underestimate the Obama Machine's ability to blow smoke -- or to pluck scapegoats out of a hat (remember Rush Limbaugh?)

My political buddy, Laureen, a nurse/manager from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area of PA says that the national uproar over the AIG bonuses is mainly a trick by the Obama Administration.

Her point is that the bonuses at issue (which were specifically developed and approved by Chris Dodd) are being used to deflect attention from a small detail: that Obama's lurch toward socialism is wrecking the country.

See, if they can make everyone angry at some minor players at AIG, we won't be nearly as angry at Barack and friends. Laureen's additional point might be that said bonuses represent less than 0.1% (one-tenth-of-one-percent) of the $170 billion that has gone to AIG. They want us fighting over nickels and dimes and ignorning the huge bags of cash changing hands.

Guess what? My friend Laureen is dead-solid-perfect in her assessment (which follows in boldfaced itaclics).

Sadly, Obama/Axelrod/Emmanuel set many traps, and we often fall into them. Forget AIG, please! It's the political equivalent of what Boy Scouts used to call a "snipe hunt."

Laureen pleads:

PLEASE stay focused. Don't let them [Obama and the media] DISTRACT YOU! You need to know that these were RETENTION BONUSES that were given because these people were being FIRED. And it was already WELL KNOWN that they were being given by Obama and Congress last YEAR!

This is just a DISTRACTION by obama because his popularity is diminishing and the tea parties are gaining strength. PLEASE don't fall for their tactics. You know as well as I do how they play the game.

These [bonus recipients] people are EMPLOYEES that are getting FIRED and in order to keep them on for an additional few months so they wouldn't quit, they were offered retention bonuses to help with the re-organization of their company...otherwise they would have just quit [and many of them are anyway].

Obama also has his e-mails going out to his supporters to try to get them to go door-to-door to promote his socialist agenda and he is trying to distract Americans from this fact , as well as his plans to spend another trillion dollars in stimulus. PLEASE stay focused on his agenda rather than his distraction techniques.

Please don't be offended by my email. I just want to make sure we remain on the same side. This is how they DIVIDE people.

Also, Look what they are doing to AIG [people]! I mean they are threatening to tax EMPLOYEE's money at 90%!!!!!!!!! That is what you call COMMUNISM in my opinion. They are THREATENING to create NEW LAWS to be able to TAX EMPLOYEES PAYCHECKS AT WHATEVER RATE THEY CHOOSE!!!!!

Welcome to Obamaland!


Let me add this to Laureen's points: Confiscating anyone's income -- whether it is 100 people or a million -- is obviously unconstitutional. The AIG bonus arrangement was approved by Congress at the behest of Chairman Dodd.

I've been getting some very minor blowback from people who buy the MSM spin on AIG. The simplest point remains that it's not constitutional (we still have one, don't we?) to seize people's income, especially when that income is authorized in a federal statute (and one buffed up by Chris Dodd!).

If somebody else's income can be confiscated, then why can't mine . . . or yours?

I'm still waiting to see even one of the thousands of Wall Streeters who contributed so much money to Obama being punished (Citigroup especially). I'm waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting.

Is it becoming clear why Wall Street contributed so much dough to Obama? Maybe they knew something we didn't about their upcoming "needs"? You betcha!