If anyone is helping advance the distinctly remote possibility that the United States will ever see any true form of “socialism,” it’s the fine folks at AIG.
Apocryphal or not, Marie Antoinette’s supposed rejoinder “let them eat cake” certainly comes to mind.
Put that in your teabag and smoke it, Rick Santelli!
Rick Santelli blasts AIG bonuses, bailout.
AIG execs get millions because the Bush administration pressured Congress to give them the money with no strings attached, because it was a dire economic emergency and there just wasn’t time to investigate and regulate how the money was to be spent. That was supposed to be handled by the Treasury Secty, Paulson.
But Paulson just shoveled money out the door to the favored financial institutions, without any restritions on how it was to be spent. Most of the money was spent buying up other institutions who weren’t so favored, or given in executive bonuses or stockholder dividends, or in purchasing assets like credit card portfolios (CitiCorp), or just held as “retained capital” and not spent at all.
Of course, expect the Republicans to try to blame this on the Democrats, even though they were the ones blocking every attempt to limit executive compensation as part of the stimulus packages.