Posted by
Catmman on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 4:08:10 PM
Don't fall for the populist pap spouted by President Obama, the Democrats and now some Republicans.
But administration officials conceded that almost all of the most recent round of bonuses, totaling $165 million, had been paid last Friday, one day before the Treasury publicly acknowledged that it had reluctantly approved the payouts. The officials said that people who received the bonuses would probably be able to keep them.
So, all the populist carping from the administration is window dressing. In light of the fact that Treasury knew about the bonuses beforehand, and also approved of the release of the bonus money, the current "outrage" from Dear Leader and others is all manufactured to deflect the fact that those in charge now apparently don't know what the hell they are doing and cover for their own incompetance.
The Treasury and Federal Reserve officials said they had known about the bonus program as far back as last fall. The program has provoked public protests from a handful of critics and at least one Democratic lawmaker in Congress — Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, a member of the House Committee on Government Oversight, who demanded without success in December that A.I.G. provide information about the bonuses.
Mr. Cummings said he had been communicating regularly with A.I.G.’s chief executive, Edward M. Liddy, about the bonuses ever since December. Mr. Cummings said he was particularly concerned that the bonuses were supposed to be paid by March 15, adding that he assumed Treasury officials had the same worries.
“I assumed that they were well aware of it and would take appropriate action” before the March 15 deadline, Mr. Cummings said.
Need more proof of our administrations ineptitude?
A.I.G. executives said they would never have proceeded with the bonus payments before getting approval from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.
“We would never make any important business decisions without discussing them with our government managers and owners,” said one executive, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The tangle over bonuses highlighted a broader confusion over who actually controls the insurance conglomerate. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve have both pumped vast amounts of money into the company, but the two agencies have never made it clear which of them is in charge.
Both agencies have insisted that neither of them “owns” A.I.G., or controls its management decisions, even though the federal government owns almost 80 percent of the company. As a result, the Treasury and Fed officials have repeatedly resisted forcing the company to disclose more about how A.I.G. was spending taxpayer money.
Not only did Tim Geithner and his Treasury Department know about the bonuses, they were consulted by AIG for permission to dole out those same bonuses prior to all the current hubbub. Additionally, neither Tim Geithner nor anyone at Treasury knows who the heck is in charge of AIG, the government or someone else.
Smartest. Presidential. Administration.
Evah!