A Heist Movie

This January, coming to a theater near you...

Jeremy Irons...

"Fort Knox? Compared to this, Fort Knox is a piggy bank."

Jean Claude Van Damme...

"We need to stoup dem, beefer its too laight!"

Based on the true story of the greatest robbery ever pulled...

They told Congress they would save the country. But in the end, they only saved themselves.

"700 billion, ours for the taking."

"Surely they'll catch us."

"Catch us? Ha. They'll help us!"

Directed by Tony Scott.

Congress gave 700 billion to financial firms without much debate. Yet 14 billion for the auto industry, is being scrutinized endlessly. Hmm... when Republicans in suits have finincial difficulties, there's no debate. But when Democrats wearing hardhats are in trouble... there's got to be some "serious changes."

"But wait, Adam," you say. "That 700 billion came with restrictions too." Really? You mean that limit on executive pay?

"Yes," you say.

Um....

WASHINGTON POST- Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives.

"The flimsy executive-compensation restrictions in the original bill are now all but gone," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), ranking Republican on of the Senate Finance Committee.

The truth is, Congress is hemmoraging money left and right, and all this talk about restrictions and oversight is grandstanding and outright lies. The Dems may have a slim majority in congress, but they're as gutless as ever, and as long as Bush is still in the White House, he will continue to undermine any attempts to put regulations on his big business cronies.

Executives at companies like AIG are laughing all the way to the bank.

American International Group Inc., the insurer whose bonuses and perks are under fire from U.S. lawmakers, offered cash awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of as much as $4 million.

The incentives range from $92,500 to $4 million for employees earning salaries between $160,000 and $1 million, Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy said in a letter dated Dec. 5 to Representative Elijah Cummings. The New York-based insurer had previously disclosed that 130 managers would get the awards and that one executive would get $3 million.

“I remain concerned, as do many American taxpayers, that these retention payments are simply bonuses by another name,” Cummings said in letter responding to Liddy.

AIG, which received a U.S. rescue package of more than $152 billion, has been criticized for saying it will eliminate bonuses for senior executives while still planning to hand out “cash awards” that double or triple the salaries of some managers.

They claim the bonuses... er... "cash awards" are necessary to retain top excutives-- to prevent them from joining other companies.

Um... why would anyone hire a failed executive? In this crappy economy? There's no demand for them!!!

Basically, it looks like much of the 700 billion will go towards making sure the financial futures of wealthy individuals are secure. The rest will probably be donated to various senators' re-election campaigns.

I wouldn't be surprised if Congress doesn't approve 14 billion for the auto industry. The mass unemployment and general destruction of the American economy will make sure that the public is too distracted to notice AIG executives cruising by on their brand-new yachts.

Obama can't come soon enough. But even he may be powerless to stop the greatest robbery ever committed in the United States.

Will Bush Destroy The Country?

I know what you're thinking. Hasn't he already? Embroiled in a costly and stagnant war, with our economy on life support and a major city still as mangled as the day it was hit by a hurricane, our country is in deep trouble. But, sadly, it could get worse, and there's a good chance that president Bush will make it so, despite his limited time remaining in office.

Lost amid the hubbub over Obama's cabinet appointments has been a call by Obama and his newly-selected chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, for Bush to authorize a bailout plan for the auto industry. Bush has already helped out his pals on Wall Street, but so far, he's seemed reluctant to help an industry that is just as integral to the American economy's success. With unemployment already at a level not seen since just after 9/11, the economy cannot afford more job losses.

Time magazine reports:

It's now clear that GM can't survive as an ongoing entity without massive federal assistance. The company is burning through more than $2 billion each month. It has $16 billion left. As if they were aboard a dirigible losing altitude, GM's bosses have been frantically throwing all manner of stuff overboard — retiree health-care benefits, people, assets, new car design — to conserve $5 billion. That will get it through the year.

Furthermore:

The system — the domestic auto plants and their interconnected group of suppliers — is far bigger than GM. It includes 54 North American manufacturing plants and at least 4,000 so-called Tier 1 suppliers — firms that feed parts and subassemblies directly to those plants. That includes mom-and-pop outfits but also a dozen or so large companies such as Lear, Johnson Controls and GM's former captive Delphi. Beyond those are thousands of the suppliers' suppliers.

Although the Detroit Three directly employed about 240,000 people last year, according to the industry-allied Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Mich., the multiplier effect is large, which is typical in manufacturing. Throw in the partsmakers and other suppliers, and you have an additional 974,000 jobs. Together, says CAR, these 1.2 million workers spend enough to keep 1.7 million more people employed. That gets you to 2.9 million jobs tied to the Detroit Three... Shut down Detroit, and the national unemployment rate heads toward 10% in a hurry.

We saw what happened when the government chose to let one big banking firm, Lehman Brothers, fail. The entire financial community fell down with it. Now it seems Bush is content to do the same with the auto industry. Except the workers laid off by this collapse won't be as well off as those let go by Wall Street.

So far, the President has offered only to speed through Congress an already approved $25 billion loan to help Detroit create new fuel-efficient models. But GM needs an additional $10 billion simply to pay its bills next year and $15 billion more to close plants, compensate redundant workers and dump some of its lesser-performing brands.

Bush was apparently angry that details of his conversation with Barack Obama were released to the press. One of those details was that Obama had urged him to support an auto-industy bailout. Of course, Bush had other ideas in mind...

The president stressed that his main priority for any postelection action out of Congress is approval of a long-stalled free trade agreement with Colombia. -Jennifer Loven, AP White House Correspondent

Yes, Bush is worried about Columbia, while Rome burns.

It may just be the cynic in me, but it seems to me that the Republicans have little to gain by supporting a bailout of the auto industry. They already took heat in this year's election for supporting the bailout of Wall Street. And by allowing GM and others to go under, they assure that Barack Obama begins his first year as President in a very, very deep hole that's nearly impossible to climb out from. By doing nothing, the Republicans can let Obama and a Democratic congress take the heat for a dead economy in the next election. Meanwhile, if they do approve a bailout and it fails, then the Republican base, already pissed at large government spending, will have all the incentive they need to vote their incumbents out of office.

Already, the Republicans are showing signs that they could care less about 2.9 million jobs.

AP - House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said Thursday he would oppose an auto industry bailout. "Spending billions of additional federal tax dollars with no promises to reform the root causes crippling automakers' competitiveness around the world is neither fair to taxpayers nor sound fiscal policy," Boehner said.

If Bush uses his veto power to kill a bailout bill, it's hard not to figure he's doing so in order to deliberately hurt the country for the immediate future, creating a toxic environment for the next party in charge.

Given what we've seen so far, I can't say I'd be surprised.

Put Them All In Jail

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown.

AIG sent its executives to the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles, California, even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy.

The resort tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees, according to invoices the resort turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

There's a reason we put criminals in jail. Because if we let them free without punishment, the odds are that they will continue to commit crimes. This is the basic premise of law enforcement. The threat of jail time (and the inevitable male rape that follows) is enough to make would-be criminals think twice about breaking the law.

The folks at AIG took money for insurance policies that they never dreamed would be paid out. They thought there was no way there would ever be massive mortgage defaults, the only scenario that would require them to pay the banks and lenders that bought the policies. Since AIG thought there was no chance that they'd ever have to pay, they treated the money they received as pure profit. They spent it on themselves: lavish bonuses, expense accounts... posh California retreats. Even though their policies promised that they'd pay banks and lenders money if mortgages went bad... they never planned for that event to ever happen. But it did. And the money they had promised to pay was no longer there. The executives had spent it all.

There's a name for someone who takes money that isn't theirs. Criminal.

These people should be thrown in jail. Embezzlement, mail fraud, jaywalking-- whatever sticks. Criminals should be punished for their crimes... not given $85 billion dollars so they can continue to throw parties for themselves.

Unfortunately, Congress continues to treat these executives as innocent bystanders, victimized by Joe Six-Packs who couldn't pay their mortgages. Make no mistake, the $700 billion dollar bailout didn't fail the first time on the House floor because it gave too much to executives. It failed the first time because it DIDN'T GIVE ENOUGH MONEY TO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. Once the pork was added, the bill sailed through.

Until the criminals who compounded this crisis are brought to justice, they will continue the pattern of corporate irresponsibility that led to our nation's financial problems in the first place.

Unfortunately, Congress is holding hearings... when they should be demanding trials.

But what do you expect when criminals are running our government?

The Money Pit

Why am I reading the most insightful analysis I've read to date of congress's 700 billion dollar bailout plan in an article written by a sports journalist?

As Congress continues to debate whether they are going to hand over $700 billion of your money to the wealthy who screwed up Wall Street and the banking industry, you will be relieved to learn that top executives of the bailed-out firms temporarily will be limited to a strict $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income. Surely you receive $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income, don't you? Anyway, supposing we assume the bailout is required, here is what bothers me about the plan so far: Taxpayers don't get stock, what they get is warrants that can be exchanged for stock, and nonvoting stock to boot. This means that once media attention switches to the next crisis that everyone will claim in retrospect to have seen coming, the Wall Street rich can quietly lobby to have the warrants never called, thus keeping the entire bag of gold for themselves. Even if the warrants are called, taxpayers get no voting positions -- meaning the boards of directors of the bailed-out firms can do anything they damn please with taxpayers' money.

A week ago, Warren Buffett rescued Goldman Sachs by injecting $5 billion in capital. Did Buffett bargain for warrants that can be exchanged at an unknown later date for nonvoting shares? No: He is not a fool. Buffett gave Goldman Sachs $5 billion in return for senior preferred stock, the kind that votes and also is more valuable than ordinary shares. That is to say, he used his money to buy something. Goldman can now employ the cash to fix its liquidity problems. The United States Congress and the White House should use the public's $700 billion to buy something, namely senior preferred shares. Why are Congress and George W. Bush not simply following the road map laid out on this problem by the smartest investor of our era? Either Congress and the president are a bunch of blithering fools -- or what they actually want is to insure the public's money is never seen by the public again.

Gregg Easterbrook for congress?? We need somebody in there with an ounce of intelligence, rather than stooges who do whatever big business tells them to do.