That’s Right Nate

Much of the AIG bonuses will go towards family expenses like cars for their children to get to school.

The American dream is in jeopardy.   Imagine what it is like to work long days and longer weeks in the hopes of getting a bonus to help get you by in lean economic times.   Now imagine that congress uses the power to tax in order to take all that money away from you simply because they resent your success.  The power to tax is the power to destroy and the Democrats in congress have no trouble wielding this power.  It is enough to make successful people simply “go Galt” and refuse to work.  Afterall, they won’t see the fruits of their own labor.  Such is the plight for dozens of employees of AIG.

American, a country which used to aspire to the success of its elite, now resents it.   Let me tell you about these bonuses.  Companies like AIG have to pay these large bonuses in order to get the top people to work for them.  Without a million dollar bonus or retention payment or whatever you want to call it, many of these guys would just go into social work or teaching.  Companies pay these bonuses because that is the cost of doing business requires it.  Its just unfortunate that since the taxpayers are paying that cost, we have to pay the bonuses.  These bonuses will help stimulate the economy though.  They represent a potential $165,000,000 in sports cars, caviar, private planes, and luxury yachts.

And how does congress react?  Well according to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), “My colleagues and I are sending a letter to [AIG CEO Edward] Liddy informing him that he can go right ahead and tell the employees that are scheduled to get bonuses that they should voluntarily return them,” Sen. Charles Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Because if they don’t, we plan to tax virtually all of [the money] … so it is returned to its rightful owners, the taxpayers.”

His fellow Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida chimed in by calling for a 90% excise tax on the bonuses, but it isn’t just the Democrats who seem to have problems with successful hard working men and women.   Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) took an even more extreme position, “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

The AIG executives will get their hard earned bonuses and they will spend them, but I can promise you they won’t enjoy it.  Caviar and champagne just aren’t the same when somebody has killed your appetite.

Instead of branching off into rap music, many autoworkers demand entertainer sized money from their employers

I think anybody in business knows that there is one thing that usually stands between an employer and profitability–employees.  That’s why I find it unsurprising that the line workers are threatening to bring the Big 3 automakers to their knees.

The blame lands squarely on the union who insists on an unrealistic $28 an hour for every senior autoworker.  Sure the executives get paid in the millions, but executive compensation is one of our country’s greatest sources of pride.  Unlike countries like Japan whose executives only make about 8 times what their line employees make, our executives make 40 or 50 times as much.  Americans would no more give this up than they’d give up the Statue of Liberty or the Corn Palace.

The problem is that unlike CEOs who are paid based on the size of the company, autoworkers are paid based on job performance.  This means that mere competency is rewarded with increased salary and those amazing benefits which we hear so much about.  Granted, through concessions our unionized car workers are making no more than the non-unionized ones working for foreign countries in the US, but for some reason they’re able to sell more cars.

There is hope for the future of the American Car Company thanks to management.  I’m really excited by the new hybrid Escalade which while it admittedly gets less than 20 miles per gallon can fit 2 Ford Priuses (Priusi?) in the back.  Toyota may well be buying Escalades to do Prius deliveries.  I have no doubt that in a few years Detroit could crack the 15 MPG barrier and come up with a hybrid truck capable of getting less than 15 miles to the gallon.  Will this do us any good if the car companies must continue to pay their workers $60,000 or even $20,000 per year or pay retired workers to sit around on their butts?  I wonder.

A lot of the current economic crisis is being blamed on George Bush and Republicans like John McCain.  However, nothing is further from the truth.  In fact, the credit crisis was caused by Bill Clinton and the Democrats back in 1994.    It was then that Bill Clinton signed a bill to promote low income home ownership.   I am not really sure how the Republican majorities in congress let this bill get through.

Over the next 14 years, the Republicans ascended into power and simply forgot about the bill.  Even when they controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency they had either important issues to take care of.  When the economic crisis finally hit the Republican Senators were like “Oh no they di’nt.  I thought you fixed that sh**.”  And the Republicans in the House were like, “No dog.  I thought you did.” And then they were both like “Aw sh**”.

The way that this situation caused the economic crisis is pretty simple.  Say a poor inner city couple bought a house when they had no business doing so.  Let’s say the house cost $80,000 and they put up $5,000 up front.  As a crack whore the woman had a fairly steady income.  However, her husband was finding the carjacking market frustrating.  After a year or so, they stop paying the mortgage even though they owe $72,000 on the loan.

Unfortunately, the property value has dropped and the house is now only worth $70,000.  The bank reposesses the house, but they’re losing money on the deal.  It is easy to see how financial institutions could lose $100,000,000,000 a piece on mortgages like this.  The sad thing is banks are just too trusting.  Too often they put the public good above making money and the shrewd hustlers of the inner city will always take advantage of it.

The news today is all about the Wall Street bailout failing and the stockmarket falling nearly 800 points on the news.  Sure that’s important.  You really can’t underestimate the effect of a collapsing economy on our country.  With that said, however, there are things that can never be bailed out.  Those things are called feelings.

Today during a speech, House Speaker and generally mean person Nancy Pelosi crushed the spirits of several Republicans.  According to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R), “I do believe that we could have gotten there today had it not been for this partisan speech the speaker (Pelosi) gave on the floor of the house…it caused a number of members we thought we could get to go South,”

Minority Whip Roy Blunt put the number of Republicans who switched sides after having their feelings hurt at a dozen.  However, Blunt also put the blame for the lack of agreement squarely on the Jews, saying “Clearly needing to respect the Jewish holidays of this week made the job very hard.”

What Nancy Pelosi did is unforgivable.  It would be like a high school girl who was asked to go to a Young Republicans informational meeting, but didn’t want to go so she said that her mom was picking her up right after school, but then at 4:30 when people were leaving the meeting they’d see her hanging out in the parking lot with her friends.  Where is the honor in that Speaker Pelosi?  Where is the honor?

I think that it is too much to ask House Republicans to overcome their hard feelings and put the country first when they feel so wronged.  The economy may be important, but its not as important as the feelings of those Republicans who were wronged by Pelosi.  I call on Pelosi to publicly apologize to each and every Republican whose feelings she hurt so that our country can move beyond this.

John McCain flew in to Washington today and managed to scuttle an apparent bipartisan agreement to bail out Wall Street, but with regulation and caps on executive salary and “golden parachutes”.  The agreement that followed 7 days of debate was praised by Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), the top GOP negotiator in the Senate, said, “We have a plan that will pass the House, pass the Senate and be signed by the president, and bring certainty to the markets.”

The plan which McCain unveiled later at a White House meeting would relax regulation and temporarily get rid of certain taxes in the hope that they could bring more money into Wall Street.  Thank goodness for John McCain and his willingness to go out on a limb in favor of deregulation.  Wall Street should not have to accept this bailout with strings attached and he knows it.

Henry Paulson may just be the only person in this country who can solve the nation’s economic problems if there are any.  Paulson’s ambitious plan to help out Wall Street sounds like exactly what this country needs.

For the small sum of between $700,000,000,000 and $1,000,000,000,000 the federal government will help both American and foreign banks recap their losses resulting from some unfortunate decisions and bad loans.

The main thing to remember here is we all deserve a second chance.  While some of these companies may have been a tad foolish with their money, there’s no reason they should be punished for it.  Who hasn’t bounced a check or got hit by a late fee?

The democrats want to put back all the regulation that John McCain fought so hard to remove.  They think that just because they spend $1,000,000,000 they should have some right to call the shots.  All I know is when you give somebody money you don’t attach strings to it.

The best part is we could get some of this money back if some of these bad debts get repaid.  I was worried that the government might want to “bail out” private homeowners as well.  Fortunately, Paulson put my mind at ease when he commented Sunday morning that just because home buyers bit off more than they can chew, “they still need to live up to their obligations”