AIG (which is now changing their name to AIU) can be traced back to China in 1919. It has only carried the AIG name since 1967.
When AIG began to fail (along with many of its cousins in the financial industry) the government stepped in to bail them out (using YOUR tax dollars). Rather than letting the business file for bankruptcy protection (like the airline industry did, and survived) the government decided to intervene. Rather than holding executives accountable for poor management, the company was bailed out with low- or no-interest loans (using money that didn’t exist until the government told the Federal Reserve Bank to print it – depreciating all the money that you currently hold through inflation).
But it doesn’t stop there! These days we’re hearing about how AIG is paying out huge bonuses to executives (including some that don’t even work for the company any more). There’s been a lot of “outrage” from politicians, even Obama has voiced his displeasure with AIG’s post-bailout bonuses… but something isn’t sitting just right…
- Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut inserted language into the scam-stimulus bill permitting the AIG bonuses that everyone is now bloviating about.
- Dodds inserted the language permitting the AIG bonuses at the request of the Treasury Department.
- A Congressional majority voted their approval for the Dodd proposal.
- President Obama agreed to the AIG bonuses by signing it into law.
Those upset about the AIG bonuses should focus on the fact that Congress and the President authorized them!
One of two things is true:
- Either those who voted for the scam-stimulus bill knew about the bonus provision, in which case they ought to be "falling on their own swords," instead of castigating the government-appointed CEO of AIG, or . . .
- They didn’t know about the bonus provision BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T READ THE BILL!!
Hopefully it’s the latter of the two, in which case they ought to introduce DownsizeDC.org‘s “Read the Bills Act,” so they’ll know what they’re passing before they cast their votes, wouldn’t you agree?
Making Congress read the laws they pass is a REAL ISSUE
If you don’t like the AIG bonuses Congress authorized then please use DownsizeDC’s quick and easy system to tell Congress to pass the "Read the Bills Act."
You can use your personal comments to point out that RTBA would have exposed the Dodd-Obama bonus authorization to public scrutiny BEFORE it was passed into law.
In addition, if you know someone who’s been emoting about the AIG bonuses then you might want to forward them this message and politely suggest that they do something MEANINGFUL, like using DownsizeDC’s system to ask Congress to pass the "Read the Bills Act."