Tiger Software's Blog

                             March 18, 2009

          OBAMA'S
     BACK-DOOR
   AIG BONUSES

              Obama and Dodd
        Caught In Big, Fat Lies!
             
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        OBAMA'S BACK-DOOR AIG BONUSES
                                         Obama Caught in A Big Fat Lie     
                         
                         Dodd Says That Obama Officials Sought
                To Keep AIG Bonuses, Not Prevent Them

                                                 Main Street Public Outrage is Red-Hot. 
                                   Fraud and Corruption Rule Washington and Wall Street.
                                                           Here's what we know so far.

                         

                         Money is The Mother's Milk of American Politicians
                               Democrat and Republican.

            Wall Street Banks Gave Obama $3 million in 2008.
          What A Good Investmennt They Made in Obama.

                                                      Goldman Sachs Is The Real Beneficiary.

                US Treasury Secretary Geithner approved in advance the payment
               of $165 million in "bonuses" to 73 AIG employees.   This should
               not be surprising, in itself.  Geithner as NY Fed Chariman played
               a big role in preventing AIG from going bankrupt and getting them
               their initial bailout of $75 billion..   Geithner seems to be a perfect
               bureaucratic pawn for his Wall Street masters.  He certainly had
               no appreciation for the political storm AIG bonuses would cause.

                                  

                    Obama's case is different.  He is a politician.  He knew there
               would be an uproar about these bonuses.  So, he had to feign outrage.
               But the truth is now coming out.    Obama not only knew in
               advance of these payments, he expedited them.  Significantly,
               he did not express outrage until the public found out.  Now he
               skirts the fact that he knew in advance. He takes formal responsibility:
               "The buck stops here".  But he avoids admitting his role.  How he
               tries to fool us with his feigned anger!   But now we learn the truth.

                     Obama actually learned of the bonuses weeks ago, not a few days
               ago, as he claimed.  Even more important, the White House and
               Senator Chris Dodd combined forces and took steps secretly,
               covertly, when the public was not looking, to make the bonuses
               much harder to prevent.  He did this more than a month ago.  

                   Senator Chris Dodd, who himself has received big campaign
               contributions from AIG in the past, like Obama, at first lied about
               his fore-knowledge and involvement in allowing the bonuses.  
               Two days ago, CNN reported that Dodd insisted that he was not
               involved in any way in striking out from last month's Stimulus
               Legislation's an explicit prohibition on the Treasury's allowing
               big bonuses for executives at companies receiving bailouts
               from the Government.  

                       Dodd's Lie Yesterday - : "Let me be clear: I was completely unaware
                       of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week."

                       Today - Dodd admited live on-air, to Wolf Blitzer and a
                       CNN reporter, that he was responsible for the bonus loophole,
                       and was originally covering up for un-named individuals
                       in the Obama administration.


                     Dodd, when he was cornered today and knew the truth would
                emerge from all the public attention, apologized and admitted
                he had been told by the White House to purge the prohibition
                on such bonuses in the Stimulus legislation. 

                    Dodd should resign!  The Democrats will try to cover this up.
                But I hope the media continues to reveal the extent to which
                Wall Street manipulates key Congressmen, the White House
                and the Federal Reserve.  Don't hold your breath for CBS to
                talk about this.  

                   The $165 million, in question, came directly from the taxpayers
               AIG bailout.   Intensely galling, these bonuses  were paid pnly to
               people working in AIG's Financial Products subsidiary of AIG.
               This is precisely the part of the company that brought the
               collapse of AIG and caused the taxpayers to have to provide
               $193.7 Billion.  

                    Lawrence Summers, Obama's top economic adviser defended
                the payments:
                              "The easy thing would be to just say ... off with their heads, violate the
                       contracts. But you have to think about the consequences of breaking contracts
                       for the overall system of law, for the overall financial system."
            ( http://treasurepicks.blogspot.com/2009/03/ig-bonuses-spark-outrage-in-washington.html )

               The Republicans were quick to see the opening:  Senate
               Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky exploded:
                           "For them to simply sit there and blame it on the previous administration or claim
                    contract – we all know that contracts are valid in this country, but they need to be looked at...Did they
                   enter into these contracts knowing full well that, as a practical matter, the taxpayers of the United States
                    were going to be reimbursing their employees? Particularly employees who got them into this mess
                    in the first place? I think it's an outrage."


                           

                    The bonuses averaged more than $2 million to each
                     recipent.  The biggest bonus was $6.4 million.   The
                     top seven received $4 million each.  22 individuals
                    received bonuses of more than $2 million each.   These
                    were "retention" bonuses.  They were not for superior
                   performance!  11 of the individuals who received
                   retention bonuses worth more than $1 million or more
                  are no longer working for AIG.

                  AIG's CEO, Edward Liddy in front of Congress , insisted
                   that he was obliged by contact to make these payments. 
                   (The contracts themselves have not been made public.) 
                  My experience is that there is always a loophole.  Lawyers
                  can almost always find  a way to break an outrageous contract. 
                  No effort was even made to renegotiate the contracts.  Liddy also
                 refused to provide the names of those getting the
                 money, except under condition of non-disclosure, which
                 Rep. Barney Frank refused.  Liddy claimed that the lives
                 of those receiving bonuses would be in danger, so hostile
                 was the public. 

                         NY Attorney General Cuomo argues that AIG could have
                   negotiated with these employees.  Threatened with losing their
                   job, they might well have accepted changes.  But Obama's
                   Administration did not want AIG to even try, so concerned
                   are they at keeping Wall Street happy. 

                  Liddy claimed that these bonuses individuals are vital to
                  "winding-down" AIG's unprofitable business in a volatile
                   market.  He said if they were not paid their million dollar
                   bonuses, they would quit and go elsewhere to work.  Where,
                   in this market?  Many people would say "Good riddance". 
                   There are thousands who would work very hard for a fraction
                   of what AIG was paying!    Comparable pay at other firms
                   is no more than $150,000/year.   

                 AIG's outrageous bonuses are part of a larger problem. 
                  Wall Street still thinks it is entitled to make huge fortunes
                  on the back of Main Street and taxpayers.  It is an affront
                  of the worst kind that taxpayer bailout money is being used
                  to pay these obscene bonuses. 

                        Wall Street's sense of entitlement would disappear quickly if
                   many powerful American politicians from Obama to Chris
                   Dodd did not protect their Wall Street campaign contributors.

                        There are genuine populist heros out there.  NY Attorney
                   General seems to be one.  He continues his effort to get
                   Bank of America, itself a receiver of $45 billion of taxpayer
                   money, to reveal  the names and compensation information
                   of those at Merrill Lynch  who received bonuses shortly
                   before the firm merged with Bank of America.  Cuomo has accused
                   Bank of  America of "undermining his authority, interfering with
                   his investigation and attempting to influence the government's
                   witnesses".  
               ( http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/Story?id=7102959&page=2   )

                 I only hope that Cuomo investigates AIG campaign
                    contributions to Dodd and Obama.  As it is, Obama's payback
                    to AIG is now making much needed stimulus of Main Street
                    that much more difficult politically.

                                                   Campaign Contributions from AIG

                                              Obama refused to comment about AIG contributions
                            he received.  Dodd is saying now that he will give his back.

                                                In 2008 AIG gave Dodd and Obama each more money
                            than $100,000, by far the most it gave to any other politican.
                            Democrats were the primary recipients. Of the $587,000 the
                            company doled out to campaigning lawmakers,
                            nearly $443,000 -- or three-quarters -- went to Democrats. 
                            Others:                                     

                                                                            ( Source )
                             Dodd: 'I'm Giving Back AIG Cash' - 9 hours ago
                                                   Will Obama, McCain, Dodd Return Contributions From AIG ...

                               Thieves in The Night

                                 Obama, Dodd and others talk a good game of limiting
                            executive pay for companies getting taxpayer bailout,
                            but the evidence is clear.  They lie and mislead about
                           their imvovmenty in making these payments possible.
                           As said earlier, initially the Stimulus law passed last month
                           would have prevented such bonus payments.   But in the
                           dark of the night, they took out the key provision that would
                           have banned such bonuses.  They did this as quietly
                           as possible.  They were not proud of what they were doing.
                           They knew it was wrong.  They wanted to keep it from the
                            public.

                       "Senators Ron Wyden and Olympia Snowe proposed an amendment to the
                               stimulus package that would have barred bailout-fund recipients from paying huge
                               executive bonuses (and taken back the ones paid last year.) From the AP, back then:
                               The $838 billion measure includes an amendment penalizing companies that paid
                               bonuses greater than $100,000 to executives after receiving government rescue
                               funds last year. The amendment would require the companies to repay within four
                               months any portion of the bonus above $100,000 or face an excise tax of 35 percent
                               on the portion of the bonus above $100,000.  The Wyden-Snowe amendment passed
                               the U.S. Senate. So, what happened? From the AP, today:   In February, the Senate
                               voted to add such a proposal to the economic recovery bill that cleared Congress,
                               but in final closed-door talks on the measure, that provision was dropped in favor
                                of limits that affect only future payments.
                                       "There was a lot of lobbying against it and it died," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.,
                               who proposed the measure with Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.

                                         Obama is not to be trusted.

                                 He talks a good game of reigning in obscene
                         pay for failure.   But he refuses to demand this money be
                        repaid the taxpayer and when the truth comes out,
                        it is likely that we will discover that his Administration
                         has played a key role in letting these bonuses stand.
                    Oregon Senator Wyden said "Obama's team is sending mixed messages on what
                                will and won't be tolerated on bonuses, with the president coming out strongly
                                against excessive Wall Street rewards but top officials not following through. The
                                president goes out and says this is not acceptable, and then some backroom deal
                                gets cut to let these things get paid out anyway."

                             Senators Wyden and Snowe plan to quickly introduce their plan
                 as free-standing legislation. Obama has not said he will support it.
                 His press conference today showed him avoiding standing with
                 those who aredemanding that the bonus money be taken back
                 taxed away.   Perhaps he was talking about himself when he said today:
                          "There are a whole bunch of folks now who are feigning outrage  about these bonuses..." 

                                         
                                                 http://www.daily-nonsense.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/cartoon-obama.gif

Obama’s Chief of Staff Pick Took Campaign Contributions from Wall Street  Friday, November 07, 2008  By Fred Lucas, "The Center for Responsive Politics has issued a report highlighting millions of dollars in campaign contributions that Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) has raised from individuals working in the hedge fund industry, private equity firms, and large investment firms.   "Emanuel has raised more money from individuals and political action committees in securities and investment businesses than from any other industry.   "This comes after a presidential campaign that saw Obama frequently criticize Wall Street and blamed lack of government regulations for the economic crisis that hit the country in mid-September.   "Emanuel, a former Clinton White House aide, is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and received much of the credit for the Democrats winning a majority in the House of Representatives in 2006 – the first time in 12 years.   "For his own 2006 re-election campaign, where he faced no serious opposition, Emanuel raised $1.5 million from the investment industry. His other sources of contributions came from lawyers, who gave $682,900, while people working in the entertainment industries gave $376,100.   Though Obama did not accept contributions directly from lobbyists during his campaign, Washington lobbyists have given Emanuel $136,640 since he was elected.

                                   

               Elliot Spitzer is not silent ...

                                   Goldman Sachs Is The Real Beneficiary

                        "Eliot Spitzer must miss his glory days when he was the scourge of Wall Street as New York’s
                   attorney general (and not that upstart Andrew M. Cuomo). With the bonus battle exploding
                   at the American International Group, Mr. Spitzer has jumped into the fray — and dismissed
                   the bonus scandal, arguing that it is obscuring the “real disgrace” at A.I.G.   "Why are A.I.G.’s
                  counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?”
                   he asks in an article on Slate.   Mr. Spitzer notes that A.I.G.’s trading parties were all the big banks
                   including Goldman Sachs, many of which received billions of dollars from the government’s
                  Troubled Asset Relief Program. “So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The A.I.G.
                  bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had
                  received TARP money already,” he writes.

                          “It all appears, once again, to be the same insiders protecting themselves against sharing the
                  pain and risk of their own bad adventure,” Mr. Spitzer writes.  Recounting how the economic crisis
                  is affecting workers, with tax increases, pay cuts and layoffs, Mr. Spitzer asks:
                  “Why can’t Wall Street royalty shoulder some of the burden? Why did Goldman have to get back
                  100 cents on the dollar? Didn’t we already give Goldman a $25 billion capital infusion, and aren’t
                  they sitting on more than $100 billion in cash?”   In his article on Slate, Mr. Spitzer says several questions
                  need to be answered, “in public, under oath, to clear the air,” including: “What is the deeper relationship
                  between Goldman and A.I.G.?”  Mr. Spitzer warns that “failure to answer these questions
                  will feed the populist rage.” 

                    See also  Obama interviewed by Brokaw at private Goldman Sachs dinner last ...