Goddammit. We began this week fueled by the fires of righteous indignation that those AIG twats were getting money, any money at all, from the government or anybody else, regardless of when it was awarded or for what purpose, because seriously what a crowd of worthless cocks. But now just several days later, our House of Representatives has gone ahead and “channeled the people’s rage” with the dumbest legislation since Terry Schiavo, which has cleverly backed all your liberal bloggers into reassessing this whole KILL THE WEALTHY MEATSTICKS approach.
To recap: Everybody, including your editor, was furious with AIG for thinking its employees could get these “retention-based bonuses” when the very fact that they ruined their company suggested they were not worth retaining. A couple of your favorite Obamatard bloggers, such as Sullivan and Silver, just sort of shrugged and said, “I don’t see why there’s all this outrage,” which just made people madder.
So then the House decides to capitalize on this outpouring of public anger by passing some really insanely punitive legislation that people aren’t really sure is constitutional, and instead of being like Yeah right on you stick it to ‘em we have to ask ourselves if this really makes any sense in the slightest.
As our boyfriend Nate Silver points out, essentially eliminating performance-based bonuses for high-income earners at ALL bailed-out companies could seriously disincentivize people who we actually want to hang around. Like, you know, the senior engineers at GM who are working on jet pack research and solar-powered dildos.
So here is a thought: instead of passing legislation designed exclusively to fuck AIG in the ass, come up with a plan that sets broad but reasonable guidelines for setting salaries and bonuses at bailed-out companies, something that rewards good actors and doesn’t encourage companies to bury all their compensation in bonuses for tax purposes. We will need to have some rules going forward, because lord knows every fucking bank and car company that got bailout money will need more in the near future, so it’s still worth thinking about.
Throw Out Baby, Bail Out Bathwater [FiveThirtyEight]
Frankenstein [TPM]
{ 57 comments }
Is it okay if I fuck AIG in the ass when she asks me to? I’m not Congress, just some guy.
This is the reason why government sponsored bailouts are such a frigging bad idea. Public outrage rarely equals good business strategy, unless you are a producer at 60 Minutes.
Not that I think letting GM, AIG, et al. crater is really a better idea. I’m just saying that if we want these businesses to survive, we might want to let them run like businesses, rather than just be populist pinatas.
Geithner will order the senate to quash it.
Actually, double anal fisting is a more appropriate sex analogy to this situation.
I’ll wager that I am like most commentors in that I will ignore the substance of this rather thoughtful post and go directly to the gratuitous (and funny) sex joke. More solar powered sex toys!
Wait — now you’re saying we can’t run around inflicting hasty, poorly-thought-out wrath on whatever scurrilous bastard we’ve been whipped into a frenzy over? Great. I’ll get on the phone and cancel that fleet of tumbrils.
I’d like to slap the Congress silly, but I’m too damn late.
Better yet, change the rules of incorporation.
Why shouldn’t the tax on bonuses to these world-destroyer welfare queens be about 150 percent?
Is the economiez the reason we have no typically hilarious SKS alt textz?
This new plan sounds really boring. And not exciting.
Is there such a thing as a “crowd of worthless cocks”? Don’t think so.
Also, lots of cock/ass/dildo talk in this post. More than your average Newell entry.
Wazzupwitdat, SKS?
WTF? Are you trying to be reasonable? Have I gone to the wrong website? I thought this was Wonkette…
Do you really think US Americans have the capacity to deal with this rationally, or will they just continue to fling their shit around randomly like a bunch of enraged, retarded baboons?
no mas! i call for an immediate outrage cease fire; at this point, i don’t even know what to begin to be outraged by next.
One of the benefits of us all reading Wonkette is that we all cycle together now.
This is actually almost worth it to see Josh Marshall confess that he has really no idea and keep posting e mails he gets from his brainiac readers who contradict each other.
[re=269858]shanemacgowan[/re]: You know, I can’t wait for the woman down the street to get one of those solar-power dildos. I’ll have to walk the dog by there more often.
Well, shit. What the fuck am I going to do with this bucket of hot tar and this bag of chicken feathers?
I thought the whole point was to burn the mutherfuckin’ house down and start over again from scratch. I’m talking loin-cloths-and-stone-tools-starting-over, here, not hiring-new-middle-and-upper-management-executives-starting-over.
Meh. I say fuck ‘em in the ass.
Sorry to re-post, but this OT is so exciting I have to put it up again where someone might see it:
Boarding of my flight from DCA to DFW last night was delayed while five or six suits got on, then got off in about five minutes — Secret Service, my seatmate speculated. After everybody else boarded, Laura Bush got on, accompanied by maybe one coat-holder. She looked a little dazed, as usual, Blue suit, nailed-down hair — the usual, quite nice actually. Chimpy wasn’t seen.
The bonuses were 1/1,000th of the 170 billion AIG has gotten (so far). We’ve given out about a trillion (so far) and no one is sure where any of it went. I’d like to know if it ended up in the banks’ petty cash, NCAA pools, or just went straight to politicians.
Maybe we can ask Scotland Yard to track it down since the CIA is busy with carnality.
[re=269871]magic titty[/re]: I got 41 Republican senators to counter that notion.
Can’t we just round up these Wall Street Welfare Queens and send them to those FEMA concentration camps that Glenn Beck discovered? Isn’t that what they’re for?
[re=269883]Serolf Divad[/re]: The “hiring-new-middle-and-upper-management-executives-starting-over” might just lead to the loin cloths and stone tools anyway.
Hell, give ‘em thier goddamn bonuses. We’ll get it back after thier convictions along with everything else they own.
Fucking in the ass is OK after a romantic dinner by candlelight. Possibly a box of chocolates, or at least chocolate-flavored lube, might be a good idea. Also, lines like ‘Your ass! It is ze eighth wonder of ze world! I must haaaaave eeeet!’ delivered in a pseudo-French accent are also acceptable. Followed by a fucked-in-ass ‘retention’ bonus and so forth.
This is just like when the Big 3 came to Congress and all the poltards could ask was “Who flew here in a corporate jet?” instead of “Why the hell have your bloated, top-heavy companies been crapping out the same shitty gas guzzlers for the last 30 years instead of genuinely trying to compete with the companies that make cars people actually want?” Instead of effecting lasting change for the betterment of our democracy, our so called representatives are content to grandstand and ham it up for the media like a bunch of reality show whores. The time for real change has come, the people are willing, and Congress still doesn’t get it. Time for Barry’s boy Rahm to bust out his toe-hammer.
[re=269892]SlouchingTowardsWasilla[/re]:
Do you WORK for them?
I hate to mention this, because I am sure that it is a paultard talking point already, but somebody needs to Google “constitution” and “writ of attainder” and see what comes up. Because that bonus shit was legal, man, no matter how we feel about it, and you just can’t suspend parts of the constitution when you’re mad.
Fuck, I hate being a concern troll, but there it is.
Can’t agree more with Sara. We need to talk about the fundamentals of our regulatory structure; dumb posturing and outrage isn’t helping. But that’s too hard, so I’ll just go to Moveon.org and demand that my Congressperson personally disembowel an AIG exec.
The fact that several top executives could not spell AIG may have been the first clue… but leave it to the Senate to throw up the bathos with the babywater.
Now that I’ve been able to sleep on it, I think the whole tax thing is ridiculous and now go back to my previous position, mainly that the executives of all the financial institutions should be put in a pillory at the center of Wall Street where we can all throw rotten vegetables at them.
[re=269883]Serolf Divad[/re]: Loin cloths are very drafty.
La, la, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you! I can’t heeaaarr yooouuu! Nobody’s spoiling my American Reign of Terror.
I can sum up your solution to the whole bonus crisis in three words – Dallas cage matches. If these plutocratic scum want their precious millions, let them fight it out in the Thunderdome for our amusement.
[re=269864]V572625694[/re]: the problem is, doing it wholesale. if someone has been busting her ass at gm to help create a fuel efficient car, how is it her fault that the company at large hasn’t taken her department seriously? and even more so, how is it her fault that another industry collapsed the economies of the us and the first through third worlds?
basically, it’s that whole make sure that your actions are useful or you become the legislative version this charming division of AIG. it sucks to be the grown up, but we shouldn’t be electing or encouraging congress to make us feel better, that is what drinking is for.
High paying salaries and senior engineers at GM is an oxymoron.
[re=269946]cranky[/re]: learn how to use a comma, dumbass!
“the problem is,” seriously? stfu
…personally I don’t give a damn! Pass the FRAKIN law and force these shyt-bags to take us to court and justify why they should be getting this money instead of being stuffed into a turkey grinder! And as for the “engineer” arguement; have you driven a domestic car lately? I would be surprised if the big 3 have a single engineer between the three of them! They probably just have a room full of accounts rummaging through the parts bin and put together the cheapest thing they can find. Ok, Ok, Ok, I know the quality of cars coming out of Detroit are “improving”; however I really doubt that the engineers and designers that make cars are collecting 250(+) thousand dollars in bonuses a year.
[re=269926]Tommmcatt[/re]: God forbid there should be portions of the tax code that target small groups or individuals.
[re=269956]AngryBlakGuy[/re]: The first half of your essay is excellent, and should be posted in ALL CAPS. The second half kinda peters out. Stronger prose would help. Also, you should mention the topic of fucking-in-the ass, which seems to be an obsession among your many readers on this site.
Reverse the old court ruling that says corporations should be treated like humans and a whole new responsible age of corporations will emerge, because people’s butts will be on the line if shit goes downhill.
ha ha ha who am I kidding. The whole point of having corporations treated like humans is so they can be looted by upper management then declared bankrupt with no one person or persons facing any consequences whatsoever. Except the proles who used to work at the now bankrupt company. And as Reagan taught us with PATCO, fuck the proles right in the ear, whiney babies.
[re=269959]Roger the Shrubber[/re]:
Not at all…this has nothing to do with that. Trust me, I am all for a fair, progressive tax code, and believe that those who benefit most from our system of government (like the top 2%) should bear the lion’s share of paying for it.
This was a bill designed specifically to punish a group of people without due process, which is the definition of a writ (or bill) of attainder and is directly addressed by, and forbidden in, the Constitution.
I think these guys are scumbags too, but you have to follow the rules, and this doesn’t do that.
Okay, back to snark. Sorry for the lapse into seriousness….
[re=269902]Cold War Unicorns[/re]: Yes, precisely. The only people that I am certain are less competent than the managers at AIG at managing AIG are members of Congress. Allowing this bleating bunch of grandstanding morons to write laws is bad enough, but putting them directly in charge of the economy is suicidal.
I say let’s stick a 90% tax on the salary of any member of Congress who subsists on government funds and is generally clueless as to how the real world functions.
No no no no… the point is, half of the Republicans in the House were forced to vote FOR a TAX INCREASE, which means Grover Norquist won’t let them into Republican heaven now.
[re=270031]Leopolt[/re]: Holy shit, you are right. Suddenly, the Machiavellian undertones of the White House’s role in this whole fiasco are exposed. In one fell swoop, they’ve gutted half the Republican party of one of the two “principles” it holds so dear.
Be on the lookout for some other seemingly hare-brained scheme, like trying to clone Satan, that will result in half the Republicans voting in favor of abortions.
Seriously: this is one of the best analyses of this situation I’ve read, anywhere, and without all the Joe Nocera verbiage and “look how much I know” crap. Plus, this analysis uses the word “fuck” a lot, which further enhances its mad cred. Word is bond.
[re=269940]TGY[/re]: No. I’m just stunned by the stupidity fueled rage. I expect it from the Freepers, but things are pretty fuckin’ bad when it hits the Wonketeers.
Your boyfriend Nate Silver ignores the reality of American business. The governing principle for the past decade is to mortgage the future for the present to raise stock prices. All resources of the company – including credit – are tapped fulyl to provide the maximum return to the current stockholders. That’s what the stockholders demand, and that’s what the stockholders aprrove bonuses for doing. If the company collapses the day after the current stockowners sell their shares at a hefty profit, they do not care. Those who bought late suffer, as in any pyramid scheme, which this increasingly resembles. AIG employees performed well, from the point of view of those stock owners who sold and did well. They performed superbly. They drained the company. Those who did so were rewarded. That’s the incentive aspect. It worked for the stock holders. Of course, over the long run, AIG – together with all the other management officials at other corporations doing likewise, ruined the nation’s economy, more than any terrorist ever dreamed of doing. Let AIG reward them. We should jail every one of them.
[re=270100]SlouchingTowardsWasilla[/re]: Sorry TGY – that was supposed to be a response to AKAM80TheWolf. Not sure how I managed that.
[re=270105]Here for Now[/re]: This is also the reality of American government, which is why we have been jacking up the deficit for the past 9 (or 30) years looking to pawn the resultant pain of on future generations. After all, if the country collapses the day after the current voters die, who cares?
Sigh. Maybe Congress *can* run American business. From jail.
Actually the Constitutional impediments to “Bills of attainder” and “ex post facto” laws only apply to criminal penalties.
Scientist don’t need bonuses to invent stuff. Just give them funding for their research, let their peers review their work and get out of their way. The only people that need tons of financial incentives to work are those that work in evil or useless jobs anyway. That’s the only way they can justify selling their souls or wasting their lives to themselves. I say, fuck them.
Yes we can??
It’s amazing to me how surprised and outraged we become when things like the AIG bailout happen.
We put these guys in Washington. They gave AIG a chunk of money for which there were little or no stipulations or guidelines. Much like the other bailouts, it just continues to show a lack of governmental control over spending.
Why are we surprised?
Dr. Seuss Explains The Bailout:
http://www.it-takes-work.com/2009/03/dr-seuss-explains-the-bailout/
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