Archive for the ‘piñata’ Category

Inside the Piñata At AIG: Death Threats and Disappointment in Elected Leaders

March 19, 2009

Wwe’re not defending AIG so much as pointing out they they haven’t been treated with the repect that still seems common for “lawmakers’ who screw up just as badly….And nobody except maybe Terrorists and the Taliban deserve death threats….

Seven and one half years ago, death threats were swirling for those that killed our citizens in the World Trade Center.  Now death threats are swirling and aimed at those same captains of finance and economies…

Related:
Protesters At Homes Of AIG Execs

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A solitary flat-screen television hangs on the back wall of the trading floor inside the headquarters of AIG Financial Products here. Wednesday afternoon, the most-talked-about employees in America huddled around it to find out just how despised they have become.

By Brady Dennis
The Washington Post

They watched quietly as members of Congress referred to them as greedy and incompetent. They heard more than one demand that their names be released to the seething American public. They heard the chairman of American International Group, Edward M. Liddy, tell lawmakers that people, in e-mails sent to AIG-FP, suggested that the firm’s leaders “should be executed with piano wire around their necks.”

The evening before, the firm’s chief operating officer, Gerry Pasciucco — whom Liddy recruited in November from Morgan Stanley to shut down Financial Products before it could do more harm to the economy — had gathered them together in the same spot.

Pasciucco urged them to keep their heads down, to act professionally and to continue working to extricate Financial Products from its more than $1.6 trillion in outstanding derivative contracts. He acknowledged that the past few days have been like being “inside the piñata.”

In reply, they told him that they worried mostly about getting shot, despite the guards now patrolling the parking lot, the front door and some of their homes.

A sense of fear hung in the room — the palpable, unsettling kind that flashes across people’s eyes. But there was anger, too. No one would express it publicly, of course. Who wants to hear a wealthy financier complain? And yet, within those walls off Danbury Road lies a deep sense of betrayal — first by their former colleagues, now by their elected leaders.

Read the rest:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co
ntent/article/2009/03/18/AR20090318
04104.html?hpid=topnews

Obama takes blame in Daschle, Killefer controversy

February 4, 2009

Barack Obama on Tuesday abruptly abandoned his nomination fight for Tom Daschle and a second major appointee who failed to pay all their taxes, fearing a lingering ethics dispute would undercut his claims to moral high ground and cripple his presidency in just its second week. “I screwed up,” Obama declared.

“It’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules — you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes,” Obama said near the end of a day of jarring developments, little more than 24 hours after he had said he was “absolutely” committed to Daschle’s confirmation.

“I’m frustrated with myself, with our team. … I’m here on television saying I screwed up,” Obama said on NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams.” He repeated virtually the same words in interviews with other TV anchors.

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent

Read the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/a
p_on_go_pr_wh/obama_failed_nominees

Related:
Daschle Badly Hurt Obama, Universal Health Care — No Matter the Reason, There’s No Excuse

Daschle Badly Hurt Obama, Universal Health Care — No Matter the Reason, There’s No Excuse

February 3, 2009

We’ve heard it all.  Daschle was greedy and wanted to be rich.  Daschle was too busy to get into his tax details.  Daschle had no idea.

It doesn’t matter.

Daschle wounded his president and friend.  That matters.

And he will end up causing a delay in the administration’s plan to gain for Americans universal health care.

That really matters.

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) called the Daschle caper “awkward, embarrassing and troublesome.”

But we still have 3 years and 350 some days left in this Obama term for health care, right?

Time is not important, right?

Bill and Hillary Clinton thought that after Hillary’s closed-door health care reform try years ago.  They could never get a second shot at the piñata.

Barack Obama said the stimulus was an economic necessity — a burning emergency.

By rushing, Obama has settled for a Nancy Pelosi rush job in the House of Representative: a badly bloated and pork-filled monster few can embrace.

After all the “withdrawals” (read resignations under fire) and the stimulus debacle, universal health care may be just too hard to swallow, given that it now has no administration point man and probably won’t for a month or so.

Ed Rollins has an essay on CNN under the headline, “Daschle Did The Honorable Thing.”

That’s Ed’s opinion — and it doesn’t matter.

What matters is the harm Daschle has caused for whatever the reason.  That matters — and Daschle will forever be diminished.

So blindfold Barack, spin him around, and have him designate a new HHS chief.

He’ll do better than he did on his first try with Daschle.

CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02
/03/rollins.daschle/index.html

 Democratic Senator Calls Resignations from Obama Team “Awkward, Embarrassing, Troublesome”

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02
/03/daschle-withdraws/