There must be a criminal investigation of
the AIG debacle, and it looks as if New York's top lawman is on the
case. The collusion to save this toxic company in order to salvage the
rogue financiers who conspired to enrich themselves by impoverishing
millions is being revealed as the greatest financial scandal in U.S.
history. Instead of taking bonuses, the culprits should be taking perp
walks.
Taxpayers' bailout money for AIG bonuses
has rightfully provoked a massive backlash against AIG, Wall Street,
President Barack Obama and his economic advisers, Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. The U.S. public now owns 80 percent
of AIG. The outrage is bipartisan: Iowa Republican Sen.
WASHINGTON - President Obama is facing growing liberal anger over his handling of the economy,
with prominent voices on the left voicing concerns that taxpayer-funded
bailouts are enriching corporate America while doing little to right
the nation's economic ship.
Picking up on a call by one of the loudest congressional critics of the
no-strings-attached bailout of banks and insurers, President Obama
today ordered Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to pursue legal
challenges to the American International Group's plan to pay out
hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives.
Congress and the Obama administration face an excruciating dilemma. To restore the crippled financial system, they are told, they must put up still more public money--hundreds of billions more--to rescue the largest banks and investment houses from failure. Even the dimmest politicians realize that this will further inflame the public's anger. People everywhere grasp that there is something morally wrong about bailing out the malefactors who caused this catastrophe. Yet we are told we have no choice.
Newt Gingrich is right: "It is European
socialism transplanted to Washington." How else to describe an economy
in which the government controls the entire financial center and is now
supplying life support for the auto industry? That's on top of the
existing socialist economy run by the military-industrial complex,
which, thanks to George W. Bush, now absorbs upward of 60 percent of
the non-entitlement federal budget.
"Wherever you come near the human race, there’s layers and layers of
nonsense,” says the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.”
Those words were first heard by New York audiences in February 1938, as America continued to reel from hard times.
Does anybody in the federal government know or could know “who, what,
where and when” of the massive, complex, vertical, horizontal, global
collapse of Wall Street and its planetary tentacles in over 100
countries abroad? Step forward if you exist! Uncle Sam needs you!
Is the multi-million dollar bailout of this financial mess and house of
cards, this phantom wealth mummy hitting air beyond the federal
governments’ salvage capability?
Last month, in his big speech to Congress, President Obama argued
for bold steps to fix America's dysfunctional banks. "While the cost of
action will be great," he declared, "I can assure you that the cost of
inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that
sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade."
