The Wrath of Khan-gress

Admittedly the executives of AIG receiving bonuses is distasteful and idiotic, but so is government involvement in private industry. This is what happens when preeminently unqualified individuals from government step in and try to legislate how business runs or fails. Now don't get me wrong... I am not, nor have I ever been in favor of AIG execs getting bonus paid for by the American taxpayer, but I would like to point out to the 328 frothing mouthed representatives in congress the following line from the US Constitution:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

Seems to me that if you are the fools who did not negotiate the bonuses away as part of your illegitimate bailout (Might be me, but I can find no legitimate basis for your bailout in Section 8 delineating the powers of your esteamed (sic) branch), that the people who should be held accountable for this outrage might be found by a quick glance into a mirror, or talk to Chris Dodd, who's staff seems to have authored the changes unbeknownst to him... well "unbeknownst" in the sense that "We wrote it together at the time, at the request of the Treasury". Since you gave them the money, they handed out bonuses, then you decide to tax those bonuses at 90%, that might constitute a kindergarten level intellectual example of "ex post facto", but it does line up nicely with the extraconstitutional powers of the IRS though...doesn't it?

The actions and activities of AIG is the direct result of you simpering fools who don't read the legislation you vote for: "A one-paragraph provision tucked into the thick bill modified the cap to apply it only to future bonuses, not those that might have already been legally contracted." Meanwhile the House's "please cover my ass" bill to tax the bonuses at 90% passed 328 to 93, which should create some interesting and entertaining constitutional law cases, for now we are not only taxing people based on income, but employer.

I am not saying that anything the AIG executives did was right, including the bonuses, but last time I checked there were no laws against poor business decisions, planning, or running your company into the ground regardless of its size. My simple interpretation, a non-lawyer, is that congress is in essence passing a "bill of attainder", that is declaring the executives guilty (of what, other than stupidity, only god knows), and penalizing them accordingly. Now the government has its own rights to decide what it does with its money, and can and should legitimately negotiate what may be done with government "bailout" money... however before, not after the fact.

It would seem pretty straight forward that if I have a contract clause, not tied to performance, that says if I show up for 40 hours a week, attend all the board meetings, and only wear blue socks that I get a $100,000 bonus and I meet all the criteria in my contract for award... that it is irrelevant if the company has been run into the ground or not. If you did not want money going towards bonuses there should have been specific wording in either the legislation or agreement with the company that "government" money could not be used to pay bonuses. Even then, that does not mean that if there is 1,100,000 dollars in the company coffers, and 1 million of it is government money, that I would not get my $100,000 bonus. It might not be ethical for me to take it, but it certainly wouldn't be illegal. You retroactively singling me out and jacking up my tax rate because I am an executive of that company and received a bonus certainly seems extremely questionable if not tyrannic.

The proper response to a business being mismanaged into the ground is the bankruptcy or dissolution of that business, those are the consequences, when government steps in it simply mucks up the works. Chrysler, for example, should have failed on December 21, 1979, the first time the government bailed them out to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars. Move the decimal point one place to the right and you get the current Chrysler bailout cost. The government is perpetuating the problems in the auto industry by supporting unprofitable and mismanaged companies. As distasteful as it sounds, allowing one of the big 3 to fail on their own will improve the markets and profitability of the others, provided they learn from the death of their competitor and successfully adjust to compete against the foreign automakers. It is not the function of government to ensure the profitability or survivability of any business.

Liberals screamed bloody murder about their constitutional rights being trampled by Bush's warrantless wiretapping order (questionable, yet dismissed by the Supreme Court I might add), yet seem perfectly content to throw the entire frigging Constitution out the window simply to cover their sorry asses and buy a few votes (along with quite a few Republicans I might also add). Having spent 25 years supporting and defending the Constitution against Communists, Socialists, Fascists, Terrorists, and a wide variety of other 'ists' and 'istas', I find myself for the first time in my life truly disgusted by the actions of my elected government.

To close on a subject completely off topic:

Not to be heartless, and honestly my sympathies go out to the family and friends of Natasha Richardson, but can any of you socialized medicine supporters explain why an Irish actor flew his British wife who was injured in Canada to a hospital in the United States? Instead of availing himself of the fine socialized medical system in Canada, Ireland, or the United Kingdom? After all, aren't you all arguing socialized medicine good... free market medicine bad?

Think about it.

... and no, I am not an employee of nor do I do business with, AIG. I don't own stock, shares, or am in any way affiliated with that company.

~Finntann~