Time to buy stock in AIG

No, not the company, the letters. Surely over the past two days these three letters have been worn nearly through on the keyboards of reporters, bloggers, newspaper typesetters and Presidential Teleprompter Input Specialists. OK, they are probably Presidential Teleprompter Input Czars as that seems to be the title du jour in the Obama administration.

It is amazing the amount of anger, disdain and vitriol being put forth by average citizen and elected official alike toward AIG. In the case of the former it seems like class warfare and in the latter it is political expediency and advantage.

With so much being written about this topic, I am wondering why I am bothering to add my few pennies to the discussion. I guess it is to serve as a bit of a reality check. Let's look quickly at the two aforementioned angry mobs busily pitching their torches and grabbing their permanently pitched forks in preparation of a march on Castle AIG to exact 160 million pounds of flesh from bonus recipients and slay this monstrous practice of fulfilling a contract.

Yes, that is right. AIG, in paying these bonuses, was fulfilling a contract they had with their employees. We can pass judgement as to the morality of paying bonus money to individuals who performed their duties so poorly they caused the near collapse of their company and on those same individuals for taking the payments. It is right for us to ask for the money to be returned based on this alone; not for moral reasons but to assuage the fraud perpetrated in these bonus transactions. I would hold this same opinion if the bonus was $1000 dollars as I do with seven figure payouts but I don't think we would see groups rallying to protest a smaller payment. No, the comments being made in by regular Joes in the newspapers all refer to the exorbitant amounts being paid. Let's just remember, these individuals had a contract with their employer stating the terms and amounts of these bonuses and these contracts were in effect before the company received bailout money.

When Henry "where's the camera" Paulson negotiated the initial terms of the bailout, Timothy "who needs a Turbo Tax instruction manual" Geithner was in the room. The future Treasury Secretary and tax evader, who was too smart and important to fail, should have known and probably has known for months these payments were about to happen. News reports contradict claims by the First African American President of the United States administration's claims that they just learned of these payments. The feigned indignation of The ONE will be on full display tomorrow night when he debases the office of the Presidency of the greatest country on Earth, and possibly himself, to go on a television talk show like some narcissistic celebrity touting their most recent cinematic effort or covering for a social faux pas. Granted Obama has several of these social errors to explain away but I am sure the permanent campaigner will do what he is best at tomorrow: campaign. Or he could, once again, tell how his stimulus package will benefit Caterpillar workers. I wonder where they will hide the teleprompters.

The most wretched among the indignant are those in Congress who, after getting us in this whole economic mess in the first place, now feel they have the right to take back by force the bonus money should the incompetents who received it not choose to do the right thing while ignoring equally wrong bonus payments to Fannie Mae executives. Bonuses they made possible. This angers me more than the payments. If Chuckles Shumer stood in front of me and spewed his threat of taking back this money through Government fiat I would have pimp slapped him harder than Chris Brown hits a woman on their third date.

We can not allow Congress to set the precedent of selectively going after anyone who they feel is not playing nice. Opening this Pandora's box of retroactive legislation is yet another step on the road to Socialism and social engineering; a road that seems to be flowing like the out of town side of the expressway during morning rush hour.

Where is the anger? Where is the contempt? Where is the moral outrage over the recent acts by our government in their continued power grab and blatant disregard for the intentions of our founding fathers.

This guy gets it:



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