Foreclosures at an all-time high in August, and poverty rate highest since 1994

[Darwin333]

If the banks are forced to breach their executive contracts in order to get the bailout money, then that is a huge problem. And Congress cannot invalidate existing contracts as that would be confiscatory, like a bill of attainder. They could require that their executives volunarily give up their contractually promised money as a condition to the bailout like you say, but then you'd have to get all of them to agree to it, and that just isn't going to happen. Many of these executives, especially the highest paid, would rather the bank go under and they jump ship in their golden parachutes than give up their huge bonuses. Since the purpose of the TARP was to actually prevent these banks from failing, all they could do was condition the bailout money on them not contracting for big bonsuses in the future, which is what they did.

- wolf

This is were we disagree. Personally, I think this was either a well thought out and executed plan or the big dogs (odd that it seems to be most of the same big dogs profiting from times like this for a century or so) got absurdly lucky, as in winning the lotto twice in a row lucky.

Even though we can't prove it now, I would wager that IF they were truly on the brink of collapse and IF the terms were the top execs had to give up 75% of their bonuses in order to get the .gov money to save them from collapse, the top execs wouldn't have had much choice. The pitchforks damn near came out due to the bonuses, can you imagine what would have happened if their taking the bonuses literally caused the bank to fail? Hell, the employees alone would have strung up the execs. The execs would be flat out unmarketable in the industry as well, no board would hire someone who purposely took a fat paycheck and as a result nuked the company he ran.

We had em by the balls. Instead of squeezing Congress not only let go but let the banks grab them by the balls. How in the hell does that not only happen but happen very quickly. How in the hell do we not see a single bank exec in jail for committing fraud? How in the hell does a big bank get away with bribing politicians after the politicians admit said bribery and go to jail for it themselves? How in the hell do they get away with the front running, blatant insider trading, blatant market manipulation, proven accounting fraud (many times over by the FDIC taking over banks whose assets are worth 30%+ less than what the bank said, I go to jail for doing something like that), and on and on. How in the hell do they get to purchase their competition for pennies on the dollar (I believe in some cases with our money) as a reward for their multi-trillion dollar fraudulent activities? How in the hell do they get tax payer dollars to pay for hedged bets? How in the hell do they get the taxpayer to purchase or backstop their fucked up paper AT FACE FUCKING VALUE??? How does all of that happen when we had em by the balls?

When you add all of that up, do you really think that Congress "figured the execs would let the entire banking system fail, cats and dogs living together, martial law, tanks on Hollywood Blvd, etc." if they made them give up part of their bonuses in order to receive bailout funds?

Honestly, at the end of the day it is a relatively small and almost moot issue when you consider all of the other fucked up things they are doing. There are so many other issues that are much worse but given the language in the bill and the fact that we didn't even try to use our huge advantage.

On top of that, when you have the Treasury Secretary going on CNN and saying "

Tim Geithner says he take "full responsibility" for knowing the stimulus legislation had a loophole that would allow bailed-out insurance giant American International Group pay massive bonuses to employees at the controversial money-losing financial products group.

Lastly, I will end with Dodd's own words:

According to a transcript of the Tuesday interview, Dodd was asked about an executive-compensation provision "that exempts everything prior to February 11, 2009 -- any contracts prior to that date."
iReport.com: AIG stands for 'Actually, it's government'

He said that language was not in the version of the bill that left the Senate and that he was not one of the negotiators who hammered out a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the plan.

"I can't point a finger at someone who offered a change at all," he said.

Asked whether he later had been able to figure out who added the language, he said, "I really don't know."

In Wednesday's interview, Dodd never said his Tuesday comments had been misunderstood.

"Going back and looking, I apologize," he said when questioned about his words from the day before.

Like i said, I love facts and I don't mind being wrong because that just means that I now know more facts. It is hard for me to believe this entire thing was blown up by Rush Limbaugh when you have Dodd tripping all over himself on CNN saying that he didn't put the language in at first, then he doesn't know, and then he DOES know after Turbo Tax Timmy falls on the sword. Something just doesn't pass the smell test. As you stated, Congress does not have the authority to invalidate existing contracts so exactly why would that amendment be required in the first place? Why would EVERYONE deny it after it was discovered? Why don't Turbo Tax Timmy's story and Dodds match up and why did it take so long for Dodd to "set the record straight" (which was coincidentally right after Timmy fell on the sword) about an amendment that had his name on it?

 

[Darwin333]

No, that's idiotic, here's the sequence:

He posts the false accusation of dishonesty, and other things.

You sir, are a liar and an arrogant bastard.

here is the exact quote I was mentioning:

And Republicans would make it much worse, again. The financial disaster has been slowed by Obama. Do we want to continue the recovery, or to bring Republicans to crash more?

I respond just enough to the false accusation of dishonesty to explain the situation.

No you didn't. The above implies what I stated it implies, at least by any reasonable persons interpretation. Furthermore, you did not respond to "just enough" as that would require you responding to the part in which I stated the Dems, just like the Reps, are bought and paid for by the banksters. Then again, this is typical Craig, you rarely respond to the substance of someones rebuttal.

Per my statement that I'll ignore the rest of post, I do just that, and any following.

Why Craig does this mean we're not friends anymore? You know Craig, if I thought you weren't my friend... I just don't think I could bear it!

There was no need to say the above, we already know you will ignore most of the post and instead cherry pick a sentence or two. The only difference between your norm and this time is instead of a wall o' text you decided to throw a hissy fit.

The decision to ignore his post is unilateral and can continue at my discretion. If I choose to reverse it tomorrow and give him a chance to act better I could (that's not my plan).

ROFL. Seriously?

And consistent with my statement to him, YOUR false accusation of dishonest has you on my ignore as well now indefinitely.

As I said, I am in good company.

When someone acts terribly and is ignored for it, there's no reason not to say so publically so the readers don't think there's another reason for the lack of response to that person.

How terrible of me to call you out for making a dishonest argument/statement. That is, and it remains, exactly what the statement was. Your acknowledgment that the Dems DID in fact have a lot to do with the financial crisis we find ourselves in simply proves that you were being dishonest.

You can either grab your balls and debate like an adult or you can tuck your tail and run away. I expect you will do the latter, either way I will continue to call out your bullshit and downright lies as I see them.

Have a great day Craig, I sure will, gonna take the kids swimming and do some BBQ and beer drinking.

 

[zephyrprime]

We had em by the balls. Instead of squeezing Congress not only let go but let the banks grab them by the balls. How in the hell does that not only happen but happen very quickly. How in the hell do we not see a single bank exec in jail for committing fraud? How in the hell does a big bank get away with bribing politicians after the politicians admit said bribery and go to jail for it themselves? How in the hell do they get away with the front running, blatant insider trading, blatant market manipulation, proven accounting fraud (many times over by the FDIC taking over banks whose assets are worth 30%+ less than what the bank said, I go to jail for doing something like that), and on and on. How in the hell do they get to purchase their competition for pennies on the dollar (I believe in some cases with our money) as a reward for their multi-trillion dollar fraudulent activities? How in the hell do they get tax payer dollars to pay for hedged bets? How in the hell do they get the taxpayer to purchase or backstop their fucked up paper AT FACE FUCKING VALUE??? How does all of that happen when we had em by the balls?

It just goes to show you who actually has power in the country. If the government were not corrupt, it would have let the banks fail and then nationalized them. That way, the losers would have lost their shirts like they should have, all executive bonuses would have been a moot point because all contracts would have been nullified by bankruptcy. That's pretty much what the government did when GM & Chyrsler had problems. The execs were fired thus rendering bonuses a moot point. Stockholders got nothing. Bondholders lost ~80%. Unions came away with the best deal but they still took a hit. On the other hand, as you have already noticed, when the banks ran into trouble, they didn't suffer at all. No one went to jail. No one was even fired. Bonuses were bigger than ever. Stockholders lost very little. Mortgage backed security owners lost nothing! Our country has become a banana republic run by the banks.