Jon Richards is an author, journalist, actor, and cartoonist. His political cartoons are seen regularly in the Albuquerque Journal/Santa Fe, and at www.jonrichardsplace.com.
President Barack Obama, trying to contain a political firestorm, instructed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "pursue every legal avenue" to block $165 million in bonuses to...
Tim Geithner's actions throughout his career, including his time as Treasury Secretary, are proof that the toxic thinking that got us into this mess is part of his DNA.
Let's take back some 70 odd bonuses and fail on all sides to see the systemic disease that got us here: short-term thinking and the lunatic need for a profit statement this quarter considerably larger than the last.
Have things changed so dramatically that Obama will have room to dump his biggest campaign contributers overboard? That question will be answered in the coming weeks.
If there has ever been an example of "sow and ye shall reap" gone awry, it is the madcap stripping of the national treasure by those who have brought us to the edge of the cliff.
Sorkin argues that if we do not pay $165 million in performance bonuses to executives at the failed insurer, we risk chipping at the very foundations of the rule of law.
Rather than allow these bonuses to remain intact or to take them away outright, how about deferring them until the companies and their troubled business units turn their financial fortunes around?
The new economy, the one that not only gets us out of this crisis, but keeps us out of the next, will not have a place for either AIG type bonuses or Jim Cramer-type journalism.
The sums of money going to bail out the financial industry dwarf the waste and pork that get John McCain and other budget hawks excited. Yet they are strangely calm about the bailout money.
There is an attorney who can get to the bottom of our current financial crisis and lay the blame and guilt at the foot of the culprits. Eliot Spitzer, phone home.
Giving out $18 billion in bonuses at a time when ordinary Americans have seen their life savings collapse is outrageous. To give out these bonuses using federal bailout money is over the edge.
The ongoing AIG mess provides us with an interesting sidelight today -- the use of an excuse that is no longer acceptable in the unwired global universe in which we now live.
By fueling anger over AIG bonuses, Bernanke is playing a very old game. By aiming at AIG, he is distracting public anger from the Federal Reserve. He is protecting his reputation and legacy.
The mystery over who killed a provision in the stimulus package that would have curtailed bonuses at bailed out companies is a disturbing D.C. whodunit. But even more disturbing is what it reveals about how our government is run.
When the key points of the AIG counter-parties list finally sink in to the American population, there is going to be a run on torches and pitchforks at local hardware stores.
It's admirable that our leaders now want to be frugal with our money but let's remember what the taxpayers themselves have been buying with money not rendered unto Uncle Sam.
Anybody who hasn't been living in a cave knows how bonuses got a bad name: excess and greed in large business. But what those of us in small business, where a bonus is a reward for a job well done?
Such knee-jerk populist rage is precisely what gave populist rage a bad name in the first place, whereby a valid democratic outlook is construed as nothing more than an angry-mob uprising.
The AIG "tax" bill passed by the House (and supported by President Obama) is retroactive. It taxes income at a special rate retroactively. Taking property without due process of law.
Lately the torches-and-pitchforks voices have begun to drown out serious discussion. Time to take a deep breath or two: populist rage is a rotten basis for policy-making.
If the American people come to see the Obama administration as complicit in Wall Street's unethical behavior, then Obama's entire economic program could end up in shambles.
There was no risk management on Wall Street, there was mostly excessive risk-taking. And it was largely due to outsized bonuses that rewarded risky banking while penalizing minimally for losses.
Right now Obama is trying to walk on an incredibly narrow line with no safety net beneath, but this is gut-check time: he has to decide which side he's on.
The fascinating thing about this Wall Street greed is that it is so deeply ingrained that neither the bankers themselves nor our economic leadership understands just how disgusting and dangerous it is.
What Geithner is doing right now is similar to how a magician works. First he gets your attention on one thing "look, outrageous bonuses at AIG", then he does his trick while you're watching what he wants you to watch.
No one can blame the Obama Administration for apparently misreading the level of public rage toward AIG executives, who have collected millions in bonuses while racking up billions in taxpayer bailout money.
The collusion to save AIG 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.
If the president doesn't like the deal Geithner made, and is now telling Geithner to "pursue every legal avenue," why didn't he say that before the deal went down and the bonuses were paid out?
It's good to hear Obama take responsibility, but after the previous "I screwed up" and a few more "buck stops here," the value of that buck's worth might soon diminish.
The much-reviled US tax code contains within it thousands of treatments and exclusions that enable subclasses of people to enjoy deductions, credits or even exclusions from paying taxes.
There are few topics more fit for bailout-inspired vitriol than the sports marketing and sponsorship deals bargained by financial services firms and automakers surviving due to taxpayer largess.
Concentrating on bonuses for employees at firms which have been bailed out misses the point. It's not just those firms whose employees need to be taxed heavier, it's everyone.
It's time for back to basics. Capitalism In Crisis 101. It's crazy that we're this far into the crisis and it needs to be explained, but that's the situation we find ourselves in. Paging Professor Obama.
The Republicans were going to grab onto the populist anti-bank feelings in the country to position themselves as the party of the people, with the Democrats being cast as the party of the bankers.
With so much confusion in the financial marketplace, one thing is apparent: the American people deserve to know what government-supported banks are doing and how our tax dollars are being used.
AIG gave more than $9 million in campaign contributions to Congress -- making the list of the top 100 contributors of all time, splitting its money evenly between those in both parties.
How has a popular Democratic president with a convincing electoral mandate failed to translate the opportunities of recent events into the "change" for which voters clamored?
AIG's predicament will be studied for years to come in marketing and communications classes. When the president of the United States starts bad mouthing your brand, it's not going to survive.
There is nothing forcing banks to participate in the program. And that is the real problem. And there is a big reason keeping the banks from participating: finding out that various assets aren't worth anything.
I've never been a fan of Tim Geithner, but only today have I gotten to the point where I think it's clear he needs to be fired. Why? He's proven he is either lying to the public or totally incompetent.
Is Geithner's plan another bailout to Wall Street? Or is it needed pragmatism to work with a deeply troubled, farcically entitled though still necessary private financial sector?
The indignation over AIG will serve a useful purpose if it focuses public attention on the much larger issue of the failure of the entire approach that Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are using to rescue the banking system.
If AIG were to donate the 418 bonuses to charity, it would be a brilliant preemptive PR move to neutralize its current out of touch public persona. Here's what the money could provide.
What is vital now is that the public's righteous anger is not expressed only as "no." There are a lot of things to which We The People do need to say "no." But we need a lot of "yes's," too.
Comparing these AIG executives to pigs? This is an insult to pigs!! They demand an apology!
Seriously, loved this cartoon, everything that's been said and written about AIG so appropriately summed up in one picture. LIke they say: "A picture is worth a thousand words".
ROTFLMAO.
Sally4thN2theUnknown: Comparing these AIG executives to pigs? This is an insult
This should definitely be on page one; it's hard to find them and I love editorial cartoons; there should at least be a link for cartoons so that more people can find them.
gaylehal: This should definitely be on page one; it's hard to
Seriously, loved this cartoon, everything that's been said and written about AIG so appropriately summed up in one picture. LIke they say: "A picture is worth a thousand words".
ROTFLMAO.
Love the cartoons