“Populist outrage” over bonuses is misdirected…

Sat Mar 21, 2009 at 20:16:58 PM CDT

Perspective is needed here…

1 Million = $1,000,000
1 Billion = #1,000,000,000 = one thousand million
1 Trillion = $1,000,000,000,000 = one million million

So when we say 170 billion we mean 170,000,000,000 (AIG bailout) vs. 165,000,000 (AIG Bonuses) we are talking about 1/10 of one percent of the bailout money. A drop in the bucket of this mess.

What happens when the government allows bonuses and then makes scapegoats out of those getting them?

First you get Rep. Barney Frank not giving a damn about people getting hurt.

Here’s the lowlight from today’s hearings that has Shep drawing (overheated) comparisons to McCarthyism and the boss worrying, not unreasonably, that Congress’s spiraling anti-AIG demagoguery is going to get someone hurt or killed. Why this turd can’t promise to keep the names secret is beyond me; if simple decency isn’t a good enough reason, he might want to consider the effect this is going to have on the talent pools troubled banks are trying to draw from. Want to hear Barney Frank read your name on national television for the edification of every angry populist lunatic watching? AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America are now hiring!

What makes this especially galling, of course, is not only Frank’s own culpability in the financial crisis — which he’s now going to “fix,” you’ll be glad to know — but the imperiousness he displays here and in his statements about asserting the feds’ “ownership rights” over AIG.  What a wretch.

Then… you get Sen. Chris Dodd caught in bold faced lies.

In a dramatic reversal Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd confessed to adding language to a spending cap in the stimulus bill last       month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill’s passage.

Dodd, D-Conn.,       told FOX News that Treasury officials forced him to make the change.

“As many know, the administration was, among others, not happy with the language. They wanted some modifications to it,” he said. “They came to us, our staff, and asked for changes, and the changes at the time did not seem that obnoxious or onerous.”

And then… you get Congress passing unconstitutional law which sole purpose is to show the average stupid American that they understand their outrage.

Denouncing a “squandering of the people’s money,” lawmakers voted decisively Thursday to impose a 90 percent tax on millions of dollars in employee bonuses paid by troubled insurance giant AIG and other bailed-out companies.

The House vote was 328-93. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate and President Barack Obama quickly signaled general support for the concept.

“I look forward to receiving a final product that will serve as a strong signal to the executives who run these firms that such compensation will not be tolerated,” the president said in a statement.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, told colleagues, “We want our money back now for the taxpayers. It isn’t that complicated.”

AND THEN… On Friday, AIG issused this memo warning it’s employees about angry mobs.

Sound extreme? Maybe, but here is what a busload of jackasses did today.

In the tour, dubbed “Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous,” protesters took a bus that picked up passengers in Hartford and Bridgeport for a 2-1/2 hour trip to see the swanky homes of American International Group executives in exclusive Fairfield County and to AIG’s Wilton offices.

The event was organized by Connecticut Working Families, a small liberal political party.

“It’s been one outrage after another,” said protester Aaron Goode, a 26-year-old archivist at Yale University. “AIG is a symptom but not the only source of the problem.”

We live in strange times with stupid leaders and even dumber citizens (See:Obama’s election and AIG outrage over bonuses and NOT THE F@#%ing bailout in the first place.)

As I type this CNN is running “AIG facts and fury.”