This Is Bad

Yes, and who was it that struck out Olympia Snow’s (R) limit on bonus’s to $100,000 in favor of this provision?

I’m afraid this does not reflect well on Pres. Obama. He’s got a lot of damage control to deal with here. How did they do that without his knowledge? At least, I’m hoping he didn’t know. That said, which alternative is worse?

if it turns out that geithner and geithner,(at least mostly) alone was responsible,then the president can cut him loose,apologize and name summers treas.sec,which i was hoping for initially.however,if it turns out that the whitehouse ,or especially the prresident was directly involved,its gonna be a fucking disaster.

If the story pans out as described, Obama should force both hands into resigning. It will set back any economic recovery, but we’ll never move forward with those two still in place.I don’t like either of them, anyway. Conflicts of interest abound.OT: I wish Republicans would make up their minds. Either Barack Obama is a socialist, determined to take away every rich person’s affluence, or he is secretly plotting to give government bailout money to the already-wealthy. You can’t have it both ways, Repugs.

So now can we fire Geithner?

Those two nailed this down a yesterday. I’ve been wondering why it’s still taking HuffPo so long to catch up.

We need to focus more on the true thugs of the story, the executives at AIG who are holding us hostage (give us the bonuses or we leave and this ship sinks).
The hand the administration was dealt is just so unfortunate. Even if we assume Geithner was responsible for pressuring Dodd, is he really at fault? What if Dodd’s original amendment had passed and Treasury would still have been forced to pay the executives the bonuses (because they are the ones really in charge here). The fallout from that would have been way, way worse.

>>So now can we fire Geithner?Get your teabags out LIBERALS! He can go but only after someone of superior intelligence is ready to take his place. I want competent and honest people in my government.On a side note, I have a FINANCE professor that wants to work in Treasury but knows that only Ivy League people fill those positions. This man is brilliant, honest and surprisingly apolitical.

Anybody see Gibbs’s press briefing? I’m curious how he handled all this. My guess is the admin takes the weekend to figure out what/who to deal with, announces it Monday, then Obama uses Tuesday night to bring us all back into the fold. A place I’m totally willing to go.As far as I’m concerned, I would a) rather you didn’t fuck up. But if you do, then I much prefer b) a “my bad”, or “I’ll take responsibility” and an effort to fix it than the c) HOW DARE YOU IMPLY THAT WE WERE EVER WRONG ABOUT ANYTHING?! head in the sand practice of our dear Bushies.

Sorry, I don’t buy it. To me, it seems Dodd was all too willing to play along, especially considering he lied about being involved in the first place.Follow the money. No one receives more cash from AIG than Dodd.

Ah, damnit Geithner!He is going to burn for this. Obama trusted you! We trusted you, Tim! I’m sorry, man, but it’s time for you to go.NEXT!!!

Yeah, I read about all this yesterday, and it pissed me off. These are exactly the kinds of games I thought we were going to stop playing. First they totally excommunicate Howard Dean for political reasons and now they’re scapegoating Dodd. Seriously, this turns my stomach.With regard to Dodd and the money trail, we can’t simply choose to not buy a story because we see where money went. The proof is there in the February articles. Just because you don’t like Dodd and want him to burn because he accepted money from AIG doesn’t mean you have the luxury of selecting your facts about him.

Bob,I must say I disagree with you on this. Having spent time in corporate America, I have written many contracts for retention bonuses. Once the people have fulfilled their obligations, it becomes very difficult to claw back the money. In addition, I’m not sure people realize just how much work needs to be done to fix the system. This is just one issue of hundreds. I think people will be very pleasantly surprised when the stress tests are done and the toxic asset plan is released. I really think the press and congress is being way to hard on Geithner. He may not be a great public speaker, but he is brilliant and I am confident he can get this worked out. Let’s realize that this situation is very complex and will take some time to solve. Unfortunately our current culture of instant information is making things worse..

I personally see the retention bonuses as a non-issue. The people were needed because of their expertise and would have left for different jobs and so they were given retention bonuses. This is common practice that I described in last night’s PTT. This retention bonus issue is just not worth the time and effort being expended on it.I assume this non-issue has been blown up to distract us from something far more important that is happening. If and when I figure out what that is I’ll let you know.

It’s not a non-issue since the entire practice is outrageous to begin with especially considering these people are being given bonuses for failing at their jobs. The fact that it’s common practice is what makes it an issue.

Not cool, dude. Not cool.

Dodd’s statement yesterday.

Dodd’s telephonic press conference on AIG today.

This is why gov’t shouldn’t have it’s nose in private business, they are going to drive AIG right into the ground along with our 1.6 trillion. Poor GM and Chrysler and all those union jobs down the crapper. Probably good for Ford, they will hire all the top manegement away from GM and Chrysler as they can pay at market rates. They will be free to build cars the way the market wants, not what the gov’t thinks they should be. The new Edsel will be a GM or Chrysler product. Kiss the bailout money goodbye.

Babalou,The ENTIRE reason this mess exists is BECAUSE OF PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Alex,Many would argue that the entire mess exists because gov’t stuck it nose in the market via Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac to back higher risk loans to people who wouldn’t otherwise qualify for these loans. Freddie and Fannie both spawned by the gov’t. Freddie and Fannie up to their eyebrows in all of this. Sorry, there is no way you can blame the “ENTIRE” mess on private business, that simply is not accurate.

Sorry but yes you exactly can. A complete lack of regulation has been in effect since Reagan with the govt. disregarding everything these banks and businesses have been doing. The govt. didn’t stick it’s nose in the market until those companies began to belly up.