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One othe thing. It was passed by Democrats...all of them.
Try again, both houses had a hand in making this sausage that no one ever read.
I can't wait to see what else is going to pop up in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.
One othe thing. It was passed by Democrats...all of them.
That is not what I was referring to at all. There was a republican congresswoman from Maine who had some of her language removed with restrictions. In any event, Dodd's changes look awful. Obama's outrage comments seem even more ridiculous now if they had a hand in this.
That's because he's a ing liar...and they're catching up with him. I suspect his approval ratings are headed South, and fast.
By the entire Senate actually. Unanimously. That means your precious GOP senators were in on this too.
oooh Legal FAIL.
Nice. We don't get to see that too often. I wonder what right wing media talking point you're parroting here, or if you thought of that dumb by yourself.
1) Those cons utional clauses deal with making something criminal or treasonous, after the act has taken place.
Taxing the snot out of it, does not make the receipt of those bonuses criminal,
you
dumb
ass.
2) Taxing the snot out of it, does not impair the "Obligation of Contracts"
I was going to put a lmao smiley here, but on second thought it isn't funny. You suck and that's sad.
If the proposed a law specifically interfered in the contracts, you might have a point. Show me that it does, and I will retract this and apologize. If you can't do that, you're a dumb ass.
The other thing is that as owners, the government has a right to, WITHOUT PASSING LAWS, require that the contracts be renegotiated. Renegotiating contracts happens all the time.
In this case, as I have pointed out before, if I were to have received one of these bonuses, given the outright death threats floating around out there over them, I would be falling all over myself to give it back before my name went public.
I doubt that there would be ANY lawsuits from the recipients over this forced renegotiation. There might have been the potential, but not now.
Liddy seems to be doing a good job winding it down.
I think there will be some outrage over Fannie and Freddie, but the people who really steered AIG, Fannie, and Freddie, into the toilet are probably gone already and the scale of the bonuses is much less than the milliion dollar+ stuff.
You are also right to wonder if Frank might hold off criticism of those two ins utions because of romantic entanglements. I would wonder however, if Franks actually did criticise/investigate whether you would actually give him credit for that.
The first part of this post is great, and I astonishingly agree with a good chunk of it.
Where'd you get the idea that Article I, Section 9 limitations on Congress applied only to criminal activity? Just a couple of clauses down it says, "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state."oooh Legal FAIL.
Nice. We don't get to see that too often. I wonder what right wing media talking point you're parroting here, or if you thought of that dumb by yourself.
1) Those cons utional clauses deal with making something criminal or treasonous, after the act has taken place.
Taxing the snot out of it, does not make the receipt of those bonuses criminal,
you
dumb
ass.
2) Taxing the snot out of it, does not impair the "Obligation of Contracts"
I was going to put a lmao smiley here, but on second thought it isn't funny. You suck and that's sad.
If the proposed a law specifically interfered in the contracts, you might have a point. Show me that it does, and I will retract this and apologize. If you can't do that, you're a dumb ass.
The other thing is that as owners, the government has a right to, WITHOUT PASSING LAWS, require that the contracts be renegotiated. Renegotiating contracts happens all the time.
In this case, as I have pointed out before, if I were to have received one of these bonuses, given the outright death threats floating around out there over them, I would be falling all over myself to give it back before my name went public.
I doubt that there would be ANY lawsuits from the recipients over this forced renegotiation. There might have been the potential, but not now.
How is that related to treason or criminal activity?
Article I, Section 9 deals with the limitations under which Congress can execute its Article I powers. If there are laws, in place, that contemplate or define the tax burden due by the recipients of those bonuses then, making new law to treat them differently is the very definition of ex-post facto law making.
If you do it from a fake sense of outrage over an issue you created to begin with...it's still ex-post facto law making...just rancidly political.
As far as renegotiating contracts, you're right. But, if both parties can't reach agreement, then you're left with either honoring the existing contracts or reneging and getting sued.
And, as I understand it, most of the executives have already been terrorized into relinquishing their bonuses. But, had they known what would have happened, they could just as easily have been employed elsewhere, making just as much money without the hassle. AIG would have failed without the expertise the retention bonuses were meant to retain and I guess we would have all seen what would have happened if AIG failed.
Too bad.
Keep it up and Jerry Louis will start starring in your FAILATHON.
The way you are putting this out there convinces me that you are merely parroting something you read somewhere and didn't think of it yourself.
1) Please name the "article" exported from "any state" for a retention bonus.
2) Tax law in the US routinely treats different things with different taxing approaches. That particular legal precedent is well-established, tax-protestor nutjobs notwithstanding.
Lastly:
The law didn't make receiving the bonuses criminal.
Care to re-think your approach on this one? Hmmm?
Last edited by RandomGuy; 03-19-2009 at 10:10 AM. Reason: removed some snarkiness.
too big to fail = too big to exists
No, but the rhetoric sure is designed to make it appear criminal.
Well, that just sucks, doesn't it? Maybe this will cause the courts to revisit Calder v. Bull?
And, it's Jerry LEWIS, you twit.
Indeed that is his stage name, not Louis. My bad.
You will have to pardon my lack of knowledge about movies stars whose last real hit movie was probably about the time I entered kindergarden in the mid-seventies.
For the rest of it:
I guess that is as close as you ever get to admitting you were wrong.
'Sokay, we understand.
Not everybody has the intellectual courage/honesty to admit when they are wrong.
I looked over that after typing it, and man was that a liberal statement. I didn't fault you for being yourself.
Were I a conservative, I would say that you lacked the sense of personal responsibility to owe up to your mistake.
Aren't you glad I'm not a conservative?
And, I would say you lack the intellectual capacity to understand an admission that doesn't explicitly include the words "I was wrong."
You will have to pardon my lack of knowledge about movies stars whose last real hit movie was probably about the time I entered kindergarden in the mid-seventies.
For the rest of it:
I guess that is as close as you ever get to admitting you were wrong.
'Sokay, we understand.
Not everybody has the intellectual courage/honesty to admit when they are wrong.
I looked over that after typing it, and man was that a liberal statement. I didn't fault you for being yourself.
Were I a conservative, I would say that you lacked the sense of personal responsibility to owe up to your mistake.
Aren't you glad I'm not a conservative?
And, contrary to popular belief, I've been wrong before and admitted it.
So, tell me, do you think it's right to change the law, retroactively, after decisions are made and contracts are executed based on existing law? Doesn't that undermine all contractual obligations?
It would, but that's all speculative. We already know the USG will use the forthcoming $30 billion loan to AIG as leverage to negotiate.
My point is this: so long as the USG does not continue to neglect its own advantages, the political end (clawback on bonuses) can mostly be accomplished through renegotiation. Didn't we force the auto companies to to renegotiate labor contracts not too long ago? Why not AIG?
And that takes me back to my original point of we should have never bailed any of them out.
They should either have restructured, under existing bankruptcy law, or liquidated and had their assets bought up and exploited by others in the market.
Government has no business being in business.
"We can't let you die, but if you don't do what we want we'll deny you the money you need to survive."
Well, it's worth a try isn't it?
as it should be.
In principle I think you're right, but I'm suitably convinced that in practice the *orderly* route of bankruptcy and reorganization (for AIG) would've triggered a cascade of bank failures and a financial panic geometrically worse than the one we're in right now. I'm frankly conflicted about whether, economically speaking, long term, it will have been wise to put off the day of reckoning, but the political calculation in retrospect is easy enough to understand.
If AIG had been allowed to bite the dust the ensuing crisis might've killed capitalism as we know it. It might still have. Hence, my own very conflicted feelings about the bailout. Everything about it is wrong, except that maybe it kept the sky from falling for a little while.
Last edited by Winehole23; 03-19-2009 at 11:49 AM.
mmm tasty pluperfect tense.
Were you to have said that I lack the intellectual capacity to understand an implict admission, you would be wrong. I do undestand that you rhetorically backed off that uncons utional claim.
If you have admitted you were wrong, then good for you, and I will take you at your word for that. Kudos.
That said:
Tax laws, like many are changed all the time in reaction to events and/or public policy goals. Whether or not any decision is right about how the law is changed depends on the situation.
Do I think it is right or ethical to claw them back coercively?
No. Although ultimately I do sympathize with the sentiment underlying the action and feel it certainly is wrong that those responsible should make so much money simply for being there.
The executives receiving the bonuses presumedly did not have a part in the decision. You can't blame them for someone else's dumb business decision.
That said, I do think the executives do have something of a weak moral obligation to return the bonuses. This should remain a moral and voluntary obligation, though.
This doesn't undermine all contractual obligations any more than regular estoppel does. (estoppel = court nullification of a contract if enforcing the contract or portions of a contract is unconscionable)
I don't buy the argument that it somehow undermines ALL contract law, no. It might make people think twice about accepting federal bailout money, and that isn't exactly a bad thing.
If you can tell me exactly how this might undermine contract law, with say, a specific feasible example, I might be persuaded to change my mind about that, but my gut says this is simply political noise meant to paint the left as somehow "socialistic destroyers of contracts".
I think we'll just have to disagree on what would have happened, we'll never know now; and, besides, that's water under the bridge now. But, I think Congress micromanaging and fomenting outrage is just worsening the problem. Particularly when, from my perspective, they're only doing it to deflect blame and skirt their own complicity in the problem.
If they were dead set on bailing these companies out, they should have put a bit more thought into the plan. , Shut down the markets until you have it written if you have to.
But throwing a trillion dollars out there and then saying, OH ! You can't do that, you must do this -- well after the barn is empty -- is a bit ridiculous.
I agree. This would have been anything but "orderly".
People who think that bankruptcy and "market mechanisms" would have done this better need to stand in front of a padlocked fire door in a crowded nightclub yelling "fire" for a minute or two, and see how a true "free-market" rush for the exits works.
Does ANYBODY here think that a massive, panicked sell-off of assets wouldn't be more ultimately destructive than winding them down and bailing them out?
Those who say that any bailout is bad, are implying that they think panicked, irrational sell-offs are the right way to go. That isn't a strawman distortion, that is simply the logical end to that line of reasoning, because we all know exactly what would have happened.
Banks are too inter-linked for it not to have.
Well, seeing as how these retention bonuses were contracted prior to any bail out being given or even contemplated, I'd say it not only makes one think twice about accepting bail out money but, it might make one think twice about agreeing to stay on -- on the promise of a retention bonus -- if a failing company is likely to receive bailout money in the future and thus, jeopardize their reason for staying at all.
If I had been an executive offered one of the bonuses and known that they could be nullified by Congressional action or worse, witness Congress fomenting a murderous rage against me and my family, in the future...I'd of found work elsewhere and AIG would have been toast.
Bank holiday? Yonivore gets Rooseveltian?
It is. It's even more embarrassing that the Obama administration needs the political cover of bogus populism to get *tougher* with AIG. If only there were some analogous outrage about the banks...
Depends how good a poker face we've got.
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