Posted: 04:25 PM ET (CNN) â Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNN Thursday his department asked Sen. Chris Dodd to include a loophole in the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep its bonuses. In an interview with CNN's Ali Velshi, Geithner said the Treasury Department was particularly concerned the government would face lawsuits if bonus contracts were breached. Dodd admitted to CNN Thursday he'd added the controversial provision after a Treasury official pushed for it. Earlier in the week, Dodd had said he had not played any role in the addition of the loophole. Geithner told Velshi Thursday he takes full responsibility for the situation. Also in the interview, airing in part at 5 pm ET on CNN, Geithner said: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
What a liar. Let's see, they were afraid they might face lawsuits? Isn't that why we have a Justice Department? Let AIG execs who blew up the company file lawsuits. The worst that could happen is that a court rules they are indeed entitled to them, even though the original bailout law expressly prohibited them. So this genius just throws his arms up and says, we have to give them the bonuses? And slips it into the pork bill? How dumb do they thin we are? I suspect this has more to do with campaign contributions than lawsuits.
My guess is that Geithner ( in his defense ) knew full well that the Constitution of the United States does not allow for taxation after the fact and what essentially criminalizes what was a legal contract at the time that the two parties entered into it. See: Article I, Section 9, and Section 10. Ex Post Facto law.
Nothing has been criminalized, so I don't see how ex post facto applies. Clinton imposed retroactvie taxation. Liberals thought it was a great idea then. The government should have made termination of all outstanding bonus agreements a condition of providing the initial financing. Better yet, they should have let AIG go into actual bankruptcy. Even Greenberg says that would have been preferable.
Would that be kind of like actually READING the bills BEFORE they vote on them? IOW actually EARNING their salary and retirement pay.
Greenberg is an idiot. He was playing Russian roulette with his shareholder's money. And now he has the audacity to "chirp" away about how the collapse of AIG wasn't his fault and how current CEO Liddy should be replaced? He struck a deal with the Financial Products division whereby the execs of that division received 30% of the revenues! Furthermore, its holding company had no regular oversight by AIG's board and was not regulated by any government body. And people actually listen to this moron? Give me a break.