Hopefully my final mention of AIG for a month
Sometimes I read through the other LiveJournals in the "News & Politics" section of "Explore LJ," and it always makes me sad when I find I've written pretty much the same thing that 30 other people wrote. It's kind of like going to a party thinking you've got a really cool and unique shirt on and then there's 8 other people with nearly identical shirts. But that's how the Zeitgeist works, AIG and outrage are all over every media, so anyone who's paying attention can't help but have an opinion.
Some of the opinions I found on the subject (like, a fifth) were concerned with directing outrage onto Democrats. This kind of surprises me. Is memory that short and fallible? The Treasury decided we needed this initial bailout, and they pushed Dems on removing language that prevented bonuses. They met halfway by saying that only bonuses established before Feb 11 would be allowed.
Some others were outraged that congress was abusing its power when it made a 90% bonus tax specifically for people making over 500,000 a year working for companies that received over a Billion in government funds. I agree it would have be better to have done what Olbermann suggested on Leno, which is what any company does when they don't want to pay a bonus (since the government is now technically the owner of the company); transfer the people owed a bonus we don't want to pay to a specific department, turn that department into its own company and underfund it, and then let that company declare bankruptcy. But it's too late, and now there's a tax on the books that is very large and very specific. I can't really be mad at that, since there are equally large and specific loopholes in the tax code. Also, it's vitally important that a capitalist system not reward failed business ventures like theirs, and one person made a really good point: if they had followed the route that every other business has to by doing the paper work and declaring bankruptcy, then it would be fair to bemoan the recent politically charged tax. But they decided to go through a political process hoping for a better deal, and unfortunately for them, politics is an alchemy that requires a good public image, something they neglected.
Most of the opinions I found, though, were similar to mine: This is retarded, it shouldn't have happened, that's our money, they don't deserve it, the fact that they don't get jail time is infuriating enough without handing them a million bucks to spend in London.
Some of the opinions I found on the subject (like, a fifth) were concerned with directing outrage onto Democrats. This kind of surprises me. Is memory that short and fallible? The Treasury decided we needed this initial bailout, and they pushed Dems on removing language that prevented bonuses. They met halfway by saying that only bonuses established before Feb 11 would be allowed.
Some others were outraged that congress was abusing its power when it made a 90% bonus tax specifically for people making over 500,000 a year working for companies that received over a Billion in government funds. I agree it would have be better to have done what Olbermann suggested on Leno, which is what any company does when they don't want to pay a bonus (since the government is now technically the owner of the company); transfer the people owed a bonus we don't want to pay to a specific department, turn that department into its own company and underfund it, and then let that company declare bankruptcy. But it's too late, and now there's a tax on the books that is very large and very specific. I can't really be mad at that, since there are equally large and specific loopholes in the tax code. Also, it's vitally important that a capitalist system not reward failed business ventures like theirs, and one person made a really good point: if they had followed the route that every other business has to by doing the paper work and declaring bankruptcy, then it would be fair to bemoan the recent politically charged tax. But they decided to go through a political process hoping for a better deal, and unfortunately for them, politics is an alchemy that requires a good public image, something they neglected.
Most of the opinions I found, though, were similar to mine: This is retarded, it shouldn't have happened, that's our money, they don't deserve it, the fact that they don't get jail time is infuriating enough without handing them a million bucks to spend in London.