Barack Obama vs. AIG
Posted by drocolate on March 16th, 2009
A few hours ago I reported on the $165 million in bonuses that AIG (or as I’m call them, GIA, because everything they do is backwards) was planning on giving out to their employees this year. I also mentioned that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was powerless to stop the bonuses from coming through.
Well he just got a little more powerful thanks to his friend and boss, Barack Obama.
Obama spoke out against GIA today, saying:
“Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”
He then asked Mr. Geithner to “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”
Then he took out a gun, fired six or seven rounds into the air and screamed, “I’m coming for you, AIG!”
Yeah, that last part is a lie, but he was definitely pissed.
Now all we can do is wait and see what happens. I’m sure I’ll have more to report in a few hours.
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More on AIG:
Tags: AIG, Barack Obama, fucking charlatans, GIA, Timothy Geithner
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File this under: “Never use too much shock & awe at once” It was disclosed today that the $165M was really closer to $651M in reality! No lie, more than a half billion in bonuses to the very clowns who almost single handedly took down the world economic system. I guess there are two possible reasons for this revision in cost of those bonus payments. 1. AIG’s core competence does not even include addition or 2. maybe they didn’t want to break all the bad news at once. In their own defense, AIG was quoted as saying, “Well look at all the money we saved taxpayers by not having to pay for employees who were competent enough to understand their jobs. Sometimes you just gotta hold the line on costs, right?”
Regarding the recent “Frontline Report” about the cost of our growing deficit, it is expected that by 2019 our total accumulated debt will reach more than $21 Trillion, mostly due to the expanding costs of Medicare and Medicade. Not only will SS & Medicare become the single largest deficit cause but it will exceed the ability of the Federal Government to collect taxes to cover it. I strongly disagree with this extrapolation because all calculations do not consider the scaling down cost of medical diagnostic equipment and increasingly improved technology that today eats up much of the cost of care. Also, if we cut out the cutthroat insurance companies that are run by lawyers who’s expanding greed methodologies make payment inefficient by design (they like to hold off on reimbursements, and deny payments that should be straightforward), we can begin to streamline payments, eliminating unnecessary jobs/paperwork in the medical payments, not denial, field. Couple this with the elimination of fear of being dropped or branded with the dreaded pre-existing condition label, more people will seek medical help before health care becomes critical, orders of magnitude more expensive to treat and an awareness campaign designed to promote healthy lifestyles, the cost models of healthcare could be drastically reduced, in the same way that nearly everyone on the planet can afford to buy and use a cellular telephone. When diagnostic electronic devices are needed on the scale that may be expected (with our additional ability to ship these sophisticated devices all over the world), we could drastically reduce our costs in a way that could not be realized by providing even less sophisticated equipment or devices for far fewer members of society who could really afford quality care. When a pulse oximeter or a heart defribulator cost little more than a cell phone to buy, many more doctors/nurses/patients will have them available when needed… look at how many americans buy diabetes glucose meters for $15 or less today. Lastly, advances in genetic science will develop so rapidly during this period ahead of us, with Federal Gov. support that new treatment modalities for medical issues that have been impossible to solve elegantly, will more easily be addressed. With the improved of gathering & correlating of statistical medical info on a very wide basis, the gestation time needed to gather & report results will improve turnaround time & accuracy without the bias of big Pharma advancing their own agendas first. Having access to enormous statistical info, will accelerate results and cures. I believe the cost of universal health care will produce at least one & possibly two orders of magnitude decrease in treating the entire US population with better quality care than we have ever dreamed, and would never get implemented under the current system because the current participants have no interest in savings from sharing information or developing rapid advancements.