House of Eratosthenes

Forgive me, but I’ve become calloused on the subject of politicians expressing outrage. I think if they’re truly outraged about something, they stop it if they can, and if they can’t then they move on to the next thing without uttering a peep.

I’m not taking this one bit seriously. Not at face value, anyway:

The Obama administration says it’s trying to put strict limits on the next $30 billion installment in taxpayers’ money for insurance giant AIG amid questions about whether it responded fiercely enough to executive bonus payments.

President Barack Obama and his top aides expressed outrage at reports that American International Group Inc. went ahead with $165 million in bonuses even though the company received more than $170 billion in federal rescue money. Obama directed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to see whether there was any way to retrieve or stop the bonus money — a move designed as much for public relations as for public policy.

“I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” Obama said Monday, in announcing a plan to help small businesses.

The financial bailout program remains politically unpopular and has been a drag on Obama’s new presidency, even though the plan began under his predecessor, President George W. Bush. The White House is aware of the nation’s bailout fatigue; hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have gone to prop up financial institutions that made poor decisions, while many others who have done no wrong have paid the price.
:
Expressions of outrage across the political spectrum reached a new crescendo Monday when Sen. Charles Grassley suggested in an Iowa City radio interview that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

“Obviously, maybe they ought to be removed,” the Iowa Republican said. “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

Bailout fatigue; hah, that’s rich. President Obama thinks going after the bonuses will cut through some of the public’s bailout fatigue. I hope not. If so, may your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget you were once my countrymen.

The outrage has two inspirations, the way I see it: One realistic, and one political. The realistic one is phony, and the political one is just plain stupid.

I’ve received bonuses. My bonuses were items on a contract on which things were expected both of the company, and from myself. Usually, the things expected from me had to do with staying with the company during a term. So realistically, if the company is in this contract, and the other party (the executive) has fulfilled the terms of the contract, the obligation is binding.

But there are politics to be considered. Shouldn’t the executives making the actual payout of the bonus money be able to anticipate the public’s fury over this, the hay that our President will be making out of it, and perhaps just put the kibosh on it? This is more realistic. It’s also expressly stupid.

How many people want to live in a world like this? You enter into a contract and fulfill your part of it. Before you can be paid for your performance someone needs to do a temperature check on the political ramifications involved in paying you your entitlement, and then if that’s found to be tempestuous, give you a big fat “Sorry.” What’s that you say? You’re a more sympathetic figure than some “fat cat” AIG executive? Really? In whose eyes?

Hey, do I have to report that phantom income to the IRS? If I’ve earned it but “everybody” would be mad if I got paid, so I get a big F*ck-You instead?

This is the camel’s nose in the tent. There’s no line drawn; nothing to stop this from reaching an absurd extreme, a situation in which nobody can be paid for anything, until some wise, politically-in-tune savant steps in and anticipates how “everybody” is going to feel about it.

Watch what they say about these fat cat executives. They’re talking about YOU. I know it doesn’t seem like it…that’s why they do it this way. You have to be crafty when you kill capitalism in a society that historically owes as much to it, as ours does. Crafty, sneaky and sly.

At first I thought very little of this kerfuffle. However, without taxpayer money, AIG would have folded or been parceled out, so those bonuses would almost certainly have not been paid. You would think that someone in the company might have anticipated that this might not look good to a public that’s coming to the conclusion that they’ve been cornholed.

I don’t want government to make the decision, but you’d think that someone within the company would have given this a little thought and made the argument that perhaps they shouldn’t take the money.
- chunt31854 | 03/17/2009 @ 21:14
Well, that argument has more sympathy from me than most of the others; I can certainly see the logic in it. But in the end, it’s really not about making some fat old white guy richer, it’s about honoring a contract. And if someone has to be made angry in order to honor a contract, especially in the insurance industry, then the political considerations are gonna have to lose.

I see it as on the same level as self-defense. Your right to self-defense, like your right to property, is a God-given thing — therefore, mortal man getting all pissy about it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Maybe that stings if you’re the guy getting pissed off. But it makes complete sense if you’re the guy who’s fulfilled his end of the contract and is waiting for what he’s earned (or the guy who’s defending himself, or his wife, or his children). These are rights that stand, even if they make people grumpy. Because if they don’t stand then, they don’t stand for anything.

As far as this thing that the payments wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the bailout — they were in the works, weren’t they? They were contracted by then, weren’t they? Okay then the magnifying glass is on the members of Congress who were selling us on this bailout plan; they should’ve told us. So the angle on this story is, how come Obama is so poorly organized that He couldn’t find out this information before selling us on the bailout? Because I can guarantee that’s how they’d be spinning it with his predecessor in office.
- mkfreeberg | 03/17/2009 @ 21:22
And now that it looks like these bonuses were written into the AIG bailout package, my outrage is back to just over nil.

I’ll be surprised if we get through the next few years without some lynchings, egged on by politicians who won’t stay properly bought.
- chunt31854 | 03/18/2009 @ 17:24

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On the Bonus FurorTuesday, March 17th, 2009

On the Bonus Furor
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009