Obama Wants You To Trust Markets and Government; But He Offers to Ignore AIG Contracts

The President of the United States has demonstrated that he and his advisors care lttle for contracts, American free enterprise and good thinking.

President Barack Obama and his top aides expressed outrage at reports that AIG 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, Philip Elliott of the Associated Press reported.

“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.

Here is how we justify the “outrage.”  The workers at AIG have contracts.  Same as you, me and Barack Obama.

The real outrage here is what the president is proposing: that he has the power to re-write contracts after the ink is dried and the money is paid.

What happened to the courts?  Did I miss something?  Did the president sleep though “Contract Law I” at Harvard?  Oh, he was writing his book….
.
Communists understand this.  If you lived under communism or studied their practices — you do too.

When my wife, who lived through the communist takeover in Vietnam, heard President Obama say the U.S. taxpayers should ignore legal contracts and not pay the AIG bonuses, she flew into a rage and said, “This is how it starts.  This is how the state sweeps away everything involved in legal free enterprise.”

Related:
 Republican Grassley on AIG execs: Quit or suicide

And if this is the thinking of the president’s economic wise guys like Geithner, Summers, Volker; to go and get $163 million legally spent under contract while the world economy is still in a shambles, and further diminish investor confidence in the process — we are in a hell of a fix.
.
Or is the President’s announcemnt on the AIG bonuses just political BS dreamed up by Rahm Emanuel?

Did someone check this “go tackle AIG and get back the bonus money” idea with Bernanke?

Confidence is gone Mister President and you have yourself to blame.  You didn’t “inherit” this.

This is what happens when you have a president with socialist beliefs, a crisis, a one party congress, and a media that is mostly in love with their president.

The AIG bonus money is 1/2 of 1% of the $170 billion some bailout to AIG.  It is a footnote and should have remained so to a president that just spent $1 billion an hour in his first 50 days in the White House.

His stumulus exceeded $787  billion and the omnibus $410 billion and now he is angry and chasing $163 million because of the public outrage?

Has he lost his mind?

And he wants us to have confidence in Wall Street and invest; and he wants to have confidence in him and government and spend.  And pay our taxes.

Personally, I have doubts.

Next year my Tim Geithner Turbo Tax IRS Tax Form might say: “Line 1, How much is your income?  Line 2: send it in.”

And the president wants us to have so much confidence that we’ll allow him to spend unknown trillions yet: on another stimulus, other bailouts?  Health care?  Energy?  Climate Change? Education?

The real problem here is the government wishing to control too much in some extra-legal thuinking: we gave you money so your prior contracts are void — you should have known that.

Is this what Obama learned at Harvard?

And where will this heavy handed and poor thinking government get this money?  From taxpayers you and me and the unborn.  That’s generaltional theft.

But in the near term we’ll borrow it from China and I’ll bet there are string atached to THAT.  I KNOW there are strings attached to that.  The communists invented the voiding of contracts.

****************

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

The White House says it’s looking at restrictions on some $30 billion in taxpayers’ money approved to help American International Group as the administration tries to reclaim or block millions of dollars in bonuses the struggling company awarded executives.

President Barack Obama and his top aides expressed outrage at reports that AIG 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.

News that AIG still needs billions in taxpayer dollars to prevent a collapse did little to build public confidence, Obama aides acknowledged. Seeking to turn the public tide, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs aggressively criticized AIG and said administration officials were working to put strict limits on the next $30 billion installment bound for the company.

“Treasury has instruments that can address the excessive retention bonuses, and add provisions to ensure that taxpayers are made whole,” Gibbs said.

The AIG news overshadowed what Obama’s aides had hoped to spend the first part of the week discussing: billions of dollars to help the nation’s small businesses in the hopes of getting credit flowing again. Obama heaped praise on the little guys of American industry, often overshadowed in the blitz of government bailouts.

Read the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200
90317/ap_on_bi_ge/obama_economy

http://michellemalkin.com/2009
/03/17/aig-derangement-syndrome/

Related:
Obama Plans to Charge Wounded Heroes for Treatment

Why Taxpayers Should Pay the AIG Bonuses; Obama is Dead Wrong On This
.
AIG Bonus Caper Demonstrates Obama Administration Weak Thinking
.
Stimulus: Way Fewer Jobs Than You Thought
.
 Obama Tells “Turbo Tax” Geither To Get Back AIG Bonus Money; Dumb and Dumber

 Obama: Really Want to “Fix Schools”? Try The China Or Singapore Model
.
Thowing Money Around Isn’t Always the Cure

http://kreuzer33.wordpress.com/2009/0
3/16/white-house-goes-after-aig-bonus-payments/