Government Declares War On AIG, TARP Recipients (Bloomberg)
The Government has literally gone batshit over this; members from both sides are now planning to introduce legislation that would tax bonuses at 70% for any company that has received federal funds. Geithner went ahead and took it a step further with AIG promising to accelerate the ‘wind down’ and recoup the money paid out by deducting the money from the next stimulus payout.
Long story short, AIG never pays back all of the TARP money, so it doesn’t matter anyway.
Hedge Funds May Get AIG Cash (WSJ)
In essence, while the U.S. government is busy trying to prop up the housing market — by trying to limit foreclosures, among other things — it is simultaneously putting up cash that could be used to pay off investors who bet housing prices would tumble and many mortgage holders would default.
[...]
The investment strategies involved are perfectly legal maneuvers. Still, the losses show how AIG strayed from its core business: selling standard insurance policies to businesses and individuals to protect against everything from fires to lawsuits. “AIG’s financial-products division went heavily into the business of speculation, and its gambling debts are what taxpayers are paying off right now,” said Martin Weiss of Weiss Research, an investment consultant in Jupiter, Fla.
Wagoner Softens View Of Bankruptcy (WSJ)
You really have to give it to this guy: he’s a master spin artist. In a world where CEO’s have started keeping things private until the very last second to then drop them on investors like a 40lb bags of flaming excrement, it’s nice to see someone that actually takes the time to lay the ground work softening the general public before major action.
This should also read as a pretty good indicator of the firm’s general direction in the near future; they can now call in attorneys and bankers without there being a scandal. AIG/ML and anyone else who is looking to adjust/amend payouts to finance kids in the near future could learn a little from this.
Buffett Called To Action, Investors Want Moody’s Reform (NYT)
The Oracle, a 20% stakeholder in Moody’s, is facing pressures from his shareholders to do something to fix the company.
Burning it to the ground would be a good start.
“But on the subject of the conflict of interest built into the rating agencies’ business model, Mr. Buffett has been uncharacteristically silent — even though that conflict is especially glaring in his case because one of the companies that Moody’s rates is Berkshire. (Its Aaa rating, for the record, is the same as the one from Standard & Poor’s. Fitch downgraded Berkshire for the first time last week.)”
GE Capital Loss Lurking In Moscow Loans, U.S. Cards (Bloomberg)
“General Electric Co.’s future may depend on folks like Yelena Zoshchenko.
GE Capital, the financial services unit of the world’s biggest maker of jet engines and power turbines, gave the Moscow real estate agent a car loan at a 15 percent interest rate in June 2007. Then the Russian currency collapsed.
“The banks here used to literally grab you by your lapels and ask you to borrow,” said Zoshchenko, 58. “But not since the crisis started.”"
Lions Gate Hires Team To Defend Against Icahn (Reuters)
“Lions Gate Entertainment Corp has hired an advisory team, including investment bank Morgan Stanley and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz, to launch a defense against financier Carl Icahn, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Icahn, who controls 14.5 percent of Lions Gate’s shares, is seeking to boost his influence over the Hollywood studio by offering to buy $325 million worth of its convertible notes.”
Icahn is a weakened raider. Oh for the glory days.
Bailout Bonus Brouhaha: The Sheister Heisters Of AIG (Video and Links For 3-18-09)
http://bit.ly/c0Nv4
Good stuff.
back to promote your shit site I see, dailybail @1.
“All My Sons,” life imitating art?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123733381029863555.html#mod=testMod
“Prosecutors Set Sights on Madoff Jewelry”
“In addition, the government is seeking to seize the proceeds from promissory notes for $31.55 million in loans to Mr. Madoff’s sons, Andrew and Mark. The promissory notes are expected to come due from 2010 to 2012.”
Tiny Turbo Tim, you best be taking your $1.6M house next to Larchmont off the market.
“The Government has literally gone batshit over this.”
William Richards is literally a good writer.
There is a new anti-CNBC website and petition.
It actually looks somewhat promising. Over 17,000 signatures so far.
http://bit.ly/fdBX
“CNBC Viewers Are Mad As Hell: Read and Sign The Protest Petition”
Started by Media Matters. Never heard of them.
@ 3 — WTF? since when was Madoff a defense contractor???
anyone notice the bonus tax plan to be effective for $ paid out after Jan 1? now that would be rich. taxing bonuses received by BofA employees and not taxing those received by Merrill (since they got paid in Dec). let’s just keep screwing the BofA gang until they’re on the streets living in cardboard boxes…
I love how dumb fuck liberals give other people’s money away mindlessly, and then cry foul when the money is spent in ways they didn’t “forsee”…and then they cry for “morality”.
Great job Obama. That community organizational skills are coming in handy.
@7– you are right. it’s not appropriate to color comments with literary methaphors because it ends up confusing the learning annex crowd.
That grammar are coming in handy. Go have a coffee retard.
@SBII– you’re getting more boring by the day. “I love how dumb fuck liberals give other people’s money away mindlessly.” Yes, because no taxpayer money was given away toward the very end of the last administration’s tenure. Take the dick out of your ass and buy a fucking vowel.
@12
Obama is a hybrid between Jimmy Carter, Jessie Jackson, and Will Smith’s homo character in 6 Degrees of Separation.
He’s a bleeding heart lib with stupid, canned oratory skills, gussied up in Ivy League pedantics, for the purposes of stealing people’s money.
Erin Burnett has a nice outfit on today
How can they do all this retroactively? Many of these banks took money 6 months ago, and now they’re changing the rules with regard to taxing bonuses? Further, they’re not only changing the rules, they’re reaching back into time and trying to tax bonuses already paid out.
Do this seem to anyone else like a targeted money grab to anyone else? Imagine if it becomes the precedent for congress to tax whatever group it doesn’t like this year.
Imagine that soon, doctors begin to chafe against Obama’s healthcare reform, and he decides that he is going to retroactively tax at 100% all income made at a hospital over the past 2 years to help pay for nationalized healthcare.
Does this seem ABSURD to anyone else????
Seaman Bodine: Amen. And all the Democrat Reps and Senators who rushed the $800bn stimulus through, with no review, should have to wear the AIG issue like a hair shirt. That would have been the perfect time to stop and thnk through the consequences.
Geithner says he’s going to subtract $165 from the next heaping handout. Big fuckin’ deal. Taxpayers own 80% of AIG, so it’s just a circle-jerk anyway.
#6: Media Matters is a lefty group. They love diversity of opinion, as long as it agrees with them. Oh, and 16k signatures represents the sum total of Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow viewers. There’s probably some duplicates in there too.
16 The AIG issue has nothing to do with the $800B stimulus. It came out of funds that were in fact rushed through (in your words) by the prior administration. To which the voters said good riddance. You act as if the 8 years of R rule (six of which were supported or enabled, whatever you prefer, by a R congress) were a time of fiscal discipline. Just the opposite. They should have been keeping some powder dry for times like this, but chose not to. You should all burn in hell.
@13, no, um, your thinking of the typical AIG employee.
@17 The $800 billion stimulus had a bad provision in it that allowed the AIG bonuses to proceed.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/17/aig.bonuses.congress/
@16 Once again, the government is not a business! They can vote to change a law or strike a provision that they previously passed. Yes, it would have been great if they had stopped to think about the consequences, but now that they have, they have a duty to change the law in an appropriate manner.
@15 Yes, the government can change the tax law and make a change apply retroactively. Sorry, once again, you are dealing with the government. It would be nice if the tax laws were stable for planning purposes, but in this case, they behavior was so egregious, and these bonuses are not being used to operate a going concern, that taxing them in this manner is, unfortunately, a no brainer.
AIG = Alien Investment Group?! hahah…
hilarious photo of Charles Grassley. way to go WWN
http://weeklyworldnews.com/alien-alert/6971/charles-grassley-confronts-aig-execs/
:)