Will AG Cuomo be passing out torches and pitchforks before the mob march on AIG? If not, should I bring my own?

Maybe Cuomo has been too busy and didn't get the memo. What AIG did was legal, and Obama, Dodd and all the rest of the Democrats signed off on it when Obama signed the $800 billion dollar pork bill last month.

The people who authorized these bonuses and the people who took them are as unAmerican as you can get. The greed, unethical actions have taken over the financial institutions and they should be exposed.
If they see no wrong in taking the unearned bonuses and thumbing their noses at the taxpayers, then they should not worry about Americans knowing who they are.

Aren't there any real criminals Cuomo could go after? Maybe he can come to Chicago and help out because we just exceeded last years numbers of homicides in our public schools. And it's only March . . . .

Packing on a few lbs there Lisa. Better stay away from the ding-dongs.

we're not asking for names Mr. Liddy...we're asking for instances...

And btw:  Doesn't SEC require publically traded companies to disclose such items? What's a few months early? Are we hoping the issue will die out??

We as americans need this investigation to continue so that we get passionate enough about rooting out fat cat money in washington.  In needs to be in our face so we go out to the polls and vote out seedy politicians.

I Love Barney "give out the names or we'll subpoena them" Frank.  I say give these theives a timeframe to return the money, and if they don't then go ahead and subpoena them. Don't know what good this would do, but we should make their lives as difficult as possible.

how is it possible that people, as yet un-named, can receive anything approaching a legitimate death threat? If you don't want scrutiny and publicity don't do bad things, try a little less greed.

Hey Liddy, I don't condone death threats, however, if an employee is concerned they could return 100% of the bonus, and their name won't be on the list.

Goldman Sachs will be issuing "loans" to over 1,000 employees.

AIG distributed $13 Billion to Goldman Sachs.

I was all for publishing the names of the recipients of the AIG bonuses, but as a mother I felt a chill when I heard the threat against their children.  I also feel that one of the problems with this specific set of "bonuses" is that they sound like a severance payment for winding down accounts and should be called something else.  

One of the strongest impressions from yesterday's hearings is that these Congress people don't listen!  Even if they can't be in the room during the entire proceedings, they have staff that could take notes and tell them what has been said.  No wonder we wind up with bills and laws with questions and mysteries!  I teach high school and my hormonal teenage students listen better than some of the "outraged" people bellowing out the questions yesterday.

The most important thing is to get some overall regulations in place so none of this can happen again.  

Since many of the AIG bonus recipients are UK citizens living in England, will the US income tax apply to them?

Tax them all.

Anyone that makes over $250,000 a year should be taxed at 90%

They are all just rich republicans anyway.

Tax them all to the bitter end!

Anyone that makes over $500,000 a year should be taxed at 200%

They only way anyone makes over 250,000 is by stealing it from the working class.

Remove the motivation for these crooks to take all our money - tax it!

You can ALWAYS tell when Eric Cantor is LYING....

His Lips Move !!



From Washington Monthly:

'...ALL GRANDSTANDING, NO FOLLOW THROUGH?....

When Republicans on the Hill decided to pursue the AIG bonus story, with hopes of exploiting it for partisan gain, they had half of a good idea. They would have been far better off, though, if they'd come up with an end game to the grandstanding.

GOP lawmakers knew they were "outraged." They knew how "angry" the AIG bonuses made them. They explained to the nation, as loudly as possible, that they found the whole mess "unacceptable." But given a chance to get the bonus money back, these same GOP lawmakers aren't so sure that's a good idea.

Take a look at this interesting exchange on MSNBC this morning, by way of Ben Smith. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said he wanted to see the bonus money come back, but had no idea what to say about how to do this. Would he vote to tax the relevant AIG employees? Cantor wouldn't say. Does he have any ideas about how, exactly, to get back the funds? Cantor wouldn't say.

It's not just Cantor. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he will vote "no" on efforts to recoup the AIG money. Several leading conservative lawmakers in both chambers have said the same thing. And just for real fun, Grover Norquist told the 172 representatives and 35 senators who signed an anti-tax pledge that if they support getting back the AIG bonuses, they'll be violating their written promise to the conservative movement.

This is what happens when foolish people grandstand without thinking. In effect, the message from congressional Republicans is, "We're outraged! Just don't expect us to do anything about it!"

Note to the GOP: you can't exploit an issue for partisan gain if you're not willing to stand by your own rhetoric....'

A PROUD REPUBLICAN TRADITION:

Demagougery !!!

The whole problem stems from the Bushies giving away, all the first tarp money and even before that .People forget that Bushie spent 80 billos on AIG before the tarp was pulled off.And these bankers are not use to being asked to answer any questions.They are so fillllllllllllllllthy rich and could buy and sell most of the people asking the questions.They live in a world most only see on TV.There are the walking rich and famous.They tip in Hundreds,they eat at places that most people couldn't afford a salad.They have all the toys that money could buy.They like the Bush style of life,they like the curtain for certain.

Is Nancy Pelosi's plane considered a bonus????

Just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should do that thing.

In other words...

Just because the bail out legislation allowed AIG to pay all those bonuses, doesn't mean AIG should've done so...it should've looked at its position as a private company crying to the Federal Gov't, i.e, the American Taxpayer, to bailout them out for their own misdeeds...and after looking hard at itself in that mirror, it would realize the utter folly of paying bonuses with tax payer bailout money to those responsible for the mess in the first place!

Have the democrats spent 165 million dollars trying to undo their mistake yet? Can we try them for murder if someone gets hurt?

I think it is beyond hilarious that you are villifying a college basketball coach for making a rather innocuous statement that you guys are perceiving as negative.  But, how dare anyone question our beloved leader, right?  Btw - GO DUKE!!!!  I've been a Blue Devils fan for years, and Coach K is beyond fantastic.    

Give me a break.  And for those of you who say to leave him alone and stop second-guessing everything President Obama does...I, for one, am proud and thankful that I live in a country in which it is ok to do just that.  The right of free speech, and, coincidentally, the right to second-guess our leaders (i.e., hold them accountable) is a right that we should fiercely protect.  It is un-American to tell fellow citizens that they should not be critical of those in charge, and that is applicable regardless of the political aisle down which you walk (which, for me, happens to be Democratic).

Civil discourse is a must!  

From Think Progress: The Bush Admin. approved these bonuses. Okay Joe Scarborough and Eric Cantor? Okay?
It appears Lawrence O'Donnell did a great job this morning on Morning Joe. This doesn't surprise me one bit. Mr. O'Donnell is heads and shoulders above everyone on Morning Joe in intelligence and common sense. And looks.

Becky
Do you think fathers feel any less of a chill when their children are threatened? "As a mother" should be stricken from the language. Try "as a parent".
They threaten the children because you 'mothers' immediately get irrational on the subject. Women are evolutionarily conditioned to "huddle in fear" whenever they or their children are threatened. Try to overcome that stupidity in the twentyfirst century.
Lash out against this if you like but you and i both know it is true of 99.9% of mothers.

HE decides IF it goes public?  Freedom of info anyone?  That's right, doesn't apply to liberal hacks.

sorry my bad

welcome to changeville

Just because the bail out legislation allowed AIG to pay all those bonuses, doesn't mean AIG should've done so...

Okay, not many would disagree, but they did. And as Liddy said, the Obama administrations representitives have been to all the AIG meetings discussing these bonuses, and they didn't say a thing about them. AIG has done nothing illegal and has been completely above board with their actions. Yet Democrats in Congress and Obama continue their complaints.

Is Nancy Pelosi's plane considered a bonus????
Question Mark (Sent Thursday, March 19, 2009 2:28 PM)


No, that's a perk.

A bonus is when Raul the Pool Boy comes around Nancy's home when her husband isn't around.

I see Charles Rangel came out from under his rock, to join the grandstanding.  I wonder if he has paid his past due income taxes yet.  Probably not.  After all, as a member of the ruling class, he can't be bothered.  Don't worry Chuck.  The rest of us will pick up the slack for you.

By the way, will Congress be returning the undeserved raise that they just voted for themselves?  Maybe they can just tax it at 90%, assuming any of them even pay income taxes.

The anger we all feel is more than justified, but I would want to comment on something that very few are interested in hearing. This entire calamity is the vast majority of American's faults. We have given ourselves over to greed. We bought homes we could not afford with the hopes that we could sell them in two years and cash in.

We allowed our leaders to tell us that we can fight two wars while cutting our taxes, but they failed to tell us that they were borrowing money from the Chinese to keep interest rates and tax rates low.

We used credit cards to buy Playstation 3's and X-Boxes for our kids and then cursed as our educational system was rotting out. We leased cars we couldn't afford and took out second mortgages to buy stocks and securities that showed double digit gains or worse yet we would take out loans to buy more real estate so we could be filthy rich one day.

We worshipped shows like "The Apprentice" or "MTV Cribs" that told us that unless we live in a McMansion, have a Benz or a private jet we are nobodies.

The truth is we have lost nothing. The wealth never existed. It was all a lie. Now that we see that "the emperorer is naked" we all want to crucify someone.

The truth is this. Business is about identifying or creating a need or desire in the marketplace and then filling that need or desire while profiting as much as possible. As long its "us" doing the profiting via owning the business or a part of the business via stocks, bonds,401(k)'s etc. Its all good, but none of us really want to be around when the downside occurs. The loses, the cutbacks, the bankruptcies. Then we want someone's head.

The bottom line is this. Wealth is created by work. Humans create wealth by working hard, being innovative, creating new technologies or adding new goods and services to those that may already exist.

Wealth is not created by some Harvard /Yale Grad who creates some new investment vehicle that is supposedly going to "change the paradigm" of basic economics.

We have gone through similar lies from financial geniuses before. Anyone remember Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky from the 80's ? How they created a new investment vehicle called "junk bonds" and everyone and their grandmother thought that it was the best thing since iced tea? Anyone remember how Mr. Boeske was fined 100 million dollars for breaking the law and defrauding investors and he wrote a check for the fine and walked out of court?

The problem is we are a nation that has too short a memory. As the saying goes, "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

We have to learn that even though we may not truly be a religious people, some things in the Bible and other Holy writings and in world history books are very very practical and true.

Here's one..."Wealth gained hastily will dwindle,
but whoever gathers little by little will increase it."

—Proverbs 13:11

>>>Have the democrats spent 165 million dollars trying to undo their mistake yet? Can we try them for murder if someone gets hurt?
Dave, Tn (Sent Thursday, March 19, 2009 2:37 PM)
==========
Sure we can.  As soon as we get around to prosecuting Bush, Cheney, Rove, Meyers, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Gonzalez and the rest of the Little Rascals for torture of prisoners, kidnapping, renditioning, falsifying intelligence, ignoring subpoenas, contempt of court, obstruction of justice, etc., etc.,...

SHALL I GO ON?

http://jawillie.blog.com

I don't know about the tax but these bonuses are bogus.  The guy admitted that there were plenty of people that are unemployed that probably would not have taken much time to get up to speed on these issues and there was no reason to give bonuses (agreements made in DECEMBER BTW), and really, we are not getting bonuses this year and nobody is quitting.  We have jobs.  We are luckier that a lot of people that way.  It would be a lot better if they would just give this money back.

Ejerod, Chesapeake, VA (Sent Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:02 PM)

Such insight and eloquence!

It was our collective greed that got us here and now we want to blame everyone but ourselves.
Those greedy execs on Wall Street took their cues from Main street because we let out desire for "things" overrule our common sense and common decency.

I pray that we get out of this mess, learn from it and not repeat it.

We are stuck on 180 million dollars of bonus money, what
about the Trillions of dollars already pumped into the system and
more forthcoming.  Why don't we determine who was responsible
for the total mess and not just political talking points.

>>>Ejerod, Chesapeake, VA (Sent Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:02 PM)

==========
AMEN, AMEN, AND AMEN!

http://jawillie.blog.com

Well said Ejerod!
"The truth is we have lost nothing. The wealth never existed. It was all a lie. Now that we see that "the emperorer is naked" we all want to crucify someone."

Even better (same post)
Here's one..."Wealth gained hastily will dwindle,
but whoever gathers little by little will increase it."

So, now we must pull ourselves up by our boot straps again, help fix the economy, accept reality and move on. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

As a country we are still the most creative, most energetic place in the world. Americans know how to make things happen. We elected President Obama to do just that.

We have 2 simple choices.
 1) Get behind the President and his team and support the changes we know in our hearts we need.

 2) Continue to support the Nopers and the cads who got us into this mess.

Seems a very easy choice to me!

Sure we can.  As soon as we get around to prosecuting Bush, Cheney, Rove, Meyers, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Gonzalez and the rest of the Little Rascals for torture of prisoners, kidnapping, renditioning, falsifying intelligence, ignoring subpoenas, contempt of court, obstruction of justice, etc., etc.,...
_____________________________________________________

Well Clinton came first so I'm sure you'll go after them first.

Maybe we will all learn something from the current fiasco.

The 5 biggest lies on Wall Street
These are the tenets you counted on for years, like 'buy and hold' and heed the advice of 'experts.' Keep these whoppers in mind as you plan your financial future.

[Related content: stocks, investments, stock market, financial crisis, Michael Brush]
By Michael Brush
MSN Money
If you had any money in stocks in the past few years, you might be feeling pretty dumb right now -- since you're down more than 40% on those "investments."

But stop being so hard on yourself. Yes, you probably should have pulled more money out in time.

But on the other hand, you were probably suckered by any number of big lies foisted on you by Wall Street and market players who stood to profit.

Here are the five biggest lies that probably hurt you the most and will be worth remembering in the future.

Big Lie No. 1: The market will take care of everything
Remember Ronald Reagan's line, "Government isn't the solution to our problems; government is the problem"? The Gipper may have had some great political insights, but the train wreck in the market shows this one wasn't one of them.

During most of this decade, Wall Street lobbyists persuaded would-be regulators in the Bush administration to lay off. "The markets" would find the best solutions to any problems on their own.

In the free-for-all that ensued, the Wall Street Masters of the Universe made untold millions -- and left us with huge problems. The damage caused by all the tricks, scams and skullduggery has cost more than $7 trillion in market losses so far, not to mention millions of jobs and a deep recession.

Talk back: Do you feel betrayed by Wall Street lies?

"We convinced ourselves that the inmates could regulate themselves, and obviously that was wrong," says Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, a financial consulting firm. "If we are going to let people buy public policy, then we are going to get stupid things."

Perhaps the biggest gaffe was allowing a multitrillion-dollar market in credit default swaps -- a kind of loan insurance -- to develop with no oversight or regulation. This was just plain dumb, and we'll continue to pay the price. Too much CDS exposure helped take down Lehman Bros. (LEHMQ, news, msgs) and American International Group (AIG, news, msgs). They lost big by insuring complex securities backed by bad home mortgage loans.

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Of course, none of this could have happened if regulators hadn't looked the other way as mortgage originators handed home loans to anyone who could fog a mirror. They didn't care because the loans could be sold to Wall Street banks, repackaged as securities and sold again to investors.

"A shadow banking system developed to originate and sell mortgages outside the regulated banking system, and we ignored it," says William Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and now head of the Secura Group, a division of national consulting firm LECG.

Even regulators who were supposed to be policing the market often did a lousy job during this "free market" era.

One example: Early this decade, a statistical wonk named Harry Markopolos had figured out that the investment vehicle that Bernard Madoff was promoting to well-heeled investors was a classic Ponzi scheme. Markopolos alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission, which failed to act until investors had lost billions.

Big Lie No. 2: The 'experts' will help you
Many of us rely on the "experts" for guidance in the market, and they failed us miserably.

Most mutual funds are down as much as the market -- or worse. The geniuses running hedge funds did little better. A few commentators managed to forecast the market disaster; most missed it.

There's a simple reason why they missed the coming carnage, says David Loeper, the CEO of Wealthcare Capital Management in Richmond, Va., and author of "Stop the Investing Rip-off: How to Avoid Being a Victim and Make More Money," due out in June.

The "experts" have conflicts of interest. Mutual funds, hedge funds and brokerages want to keep you at the table so that they can continue to earn fees from your nest egg. "They don't care if you win or lose, they just want you to keep playing the game," Loeper says.

Video on MSN Money
A retiree returns to work

After Jan Cone's retirement funds dried up in the market downturn, she found herself hunting for a new job. The Wall Street Journal reports on how she made the transition back.

They often pitch whatever is hot -- commodities and emerging markets come to mind -- at exactly the wrong time. "They'll market it until it falls apart, and then they will find something else," Loeper says.

At worst, the conflicts of interest seem downright blatant, says investor Jim Rogers. Among the biggest lies, he says, were the high-grade "AAA" stamps of approval put on faulty mortgage-backed securities by the debt ratings agencies -- which were paid big fees to rate those securities by the very banks who created them.

The media don't get a free pass either. Loeper says media outlets such as CNBC, and presumably this Web site, regularly fall short in guiding investors because their real priority is to provide entertainment -- and that they have to dumb things down too much to keep content interesting.
Big Lie No. 3: Buy and hold
Anyone who has followed this advice since the late 1990s now feels deceived. "Buy and hold" once seemed so obvious. Over the long haul, stocks advance 10% to 12% a year, goes the mantra. So you can't ever go wrong adding money to stock funds -- as long as you don't act like a wild day trader.

The problem was that investors and financial advisers use an assessment of risk tolerance to determine exposure to various asset classes like stocks, bonds and cash.

Then the level of risk in the stock market changed violently. But investors -- or their financial advisers -- didn't adjust their portfolios away from stocks toward safer assets like cash, says Axel Merk of Merk Mutual Funds in Palo Alto, Calif. "If the risks in the markets change, your investment allocations must also change," he says.

Talk back: What have you learned from tough times?

But how were we supposed to know that the risks of owning stocks had increased?

One early signal began to emerge in 2007, when market volatility started to increase rapidly, Merk says. Another sign was that excessive debt throughout the system had driven corporate profits to abnormally high levels, setting up investors for a big fall, says money manager John Hussman, the president of the Hussman Investment Trust.

Hussman warned investors of this risk early on. But, he says, because of Big Lie No. 2, many experts and Wall Street professionals "were unwilling to entertain any concern that threatened to stop the gravy train."

Big Lie No. 4: Overpaid CEOs are worth the money
Whenever I write about greedy CEOs who get paid too much, company PR machines trot out the old saw that pay has to be so high "to attract the best talent."

Oh, really?

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Then why are we suffering such a deep recession and huge market losses? After all, the CEOs at the banks that got us into this mess were paid like kings. Let's take a look at some of the consequences -- and predictions -- brought to us by the supposed "top" talent purchased with all that money:

An extreme underappreciation of his problems. At Lehman Bros.' very last annual meeting in April 2008, then-CEO Richard Fuld opined that "the worst of the impact of the financial markets is behind us."

In June, he told investors the investment bank was "well-positioned" because of efforts to strengthen its balance sheet.

Fuld was supposed to be a "top talent"; Lehman had paid him more than $186.5 million in salary, bonuses and profits from stock options in the prior three years, according to Equilar, an executive compensation research firm.

Yet by autumn, Lehman vanished, setting off the October 2008 market crash. It had been killed by mortgage-backed securities and other investments made on Fuld's watch.

The cost of moving too fast. On Sept. 15, Bank of America (BAC, news, msgs) CEO Ken Lewis announced that the banking giant was buying Merrill Lynch, saying the deal -- cobbled together over a weekend -- was "a great opportunity" for shareholders because together the companies would be "more valuable" due to synergies.

Lewis had taken home $98.6 million from 2005 to 2007, so you'd think he would know what he was talking about. So far, he's been terribly wrong.

Bank of America reported a $21.5 billion fourth-quarter loss. The government responded by injecting $20 billion in new capital Jan. 16 and guaranteeing $118 billion in potential losses from the Merrill Lynch deal.

The stock has been crushed. Bank of America closed at $33.74 the Friday before the deal was struck. It fell to $26.55 on Sept. 15. It dropped to as low as $3.77 on Feb. 5 before recovering to $5.57 on Friday.

What seems clear is that these executives were blissfully ignorant of the growing risks to their businesses or simply chose to ignore them.

And despite all the bad press about CEOs raking in millions for lousy performance, the tricks continue. D.R. Horton (DHI, news, msgs), the nation's largest homebuilder, lost a whopping $8.34 per share in fiscal 2008, which ended Sept. 30. The stock has fallen 79% since July 2005.

Yet Chairman Donald Horton and CEO Donald Tomnitz collected $5.4 million and $4.4 million, respectively, for the year, including $1.8 million each in performance pay. They were rewarded for hitting benchmarks on cost cutting, pretax income and operating cash flow.

None of this is new. CEOs have been collecting big bucks for lousy performances for years.

Video on MSN Money
A retiree returns to work

After Jan Cone's retirement funds dried up in the market downturn, she found herself hunting for a new job. The Wall Street Journal reports on how she made the transition back.
Big Lie No. 5: Buy a flat-screen TV, save the economy
Maybe the biggest lie about to be foisted on people is that they should go out and shop to save the economy. Wall Street wants you to spend to pump up the economy. Much of the federal stimulus package enacted this week entails tax breaks and handouts to get people spending.

But it's really just another big lie to tell people they'll make a difference if they go out and shop.

The problem is that the economy is going nowhere -- no matter how much anyone spends -- until someone comes up with a plan to give the banks enough of a capital cushion so they start lending again. So far, we haven't seen that happen.

So play it safe. Hold on to your money. Most of you need to save more for retirement, anyway.

According to McKinsey Global Institute, two-thirds of baby boomers are unprepared for their golden years. Most of the boomers who are unprepared have a net worth of less than $100,000 even though they are just years away from retirement.

If you are younger, don't smirk. You need to save, too; otherwise you'll end up like them.

At the time of publication, Michael Brush owned shares of the Hussman Strategic Growth Fund (HSGFX).

Since many of the AIG bonus recipients are UK citizens living in England, will the US income tax apply to them?

No, if they are residents and citizens of the UK. However, if the are U.S. citizens resident in the UK there is a good chance the money would be taxable. The rub might be that overseas employees have some indemnity against double taxation, so there might be a loop hole here.

I think a good shaming job would work on most of those corporate welfare cheats. Shame, shame on Joe Doe (insert real name)for accepting the bonus when he was one of the primary people that made the company fail. Joe (insert real name) is greedy and we want everyone to know just what a pig he really is. Shame, shame, shame.

Ejerod, Chesapeake, VA you are almost right. Some of us. Saved in cash, in traditional strong US companies, have legit mortgages, and pay off our credit cards. I fit all the above, but have seen the value of my house fall, my savings halved, and all kinds of charges added to my card.

This whole affair is America at it's worst...from the greed of these bonuses, to retro taxation, to fake or false indignation & the search for scapegoats (and hint, it shouldn't be the employees).  Hey folks!  Never mind that the pan on the stove is boiling over. The whole freakin' house is on fire!

All information and documents having to do with the Peoples Business should be accessable and open to everyone, anytime. It's not like people are honest and above reproach, it's business, not personal.

"Before" releasing any names?  Why on God's earth would Cuomo even consider releasing names?  Doesn't he see the lynch mob that the MSM has fueled into a frenzy?  These AIG guys are greedy pigs to be sure, but they are not criminals.  Has the country gone mad?

Frist, AIG should fire their PR guy.  Billy Martin drunk wasn't that stupid. Second, put congress on straight comission, and C pay future bonuses in company stock

UNLIKE OBAMA, THE OTHER DEMOCRAT, CUOMO AT LEAST HAS BALLS.
CUOMO'S INTELLIGENCE IS FOR REAL; WHILE OBAMA IS A DUD.

Kelly
WAKE UP PLEASE.
You don't have to have done anything criminal to have your identity named in public. This is what you all get for acting like idiots after 9/11 and rubber stamping the notion that everyone might be up to no good so we have to be able to scrutinize everyone at any time. You let 9/11 change everything and then you complain about the powers you have allowed the government to seize. Stupid

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