For anyone that doesn't know, AIG received a big government bailout, and then paid huge bonuses to some of its top executives. President Obama is now trying to tax those bonuses by 90% (This has been proposed in a bill that would tax bonuses of any person making $250,000 or more that works for a company that received at least $5 billion of bailout money by 90%). Now let's take a look at how fucked up this all is:
First of all, I'm not happy about these people getting bonuses. That said, it doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong for them too, especially
if they were incentive based bonuses written into their contracts; it is my understand that this is the case. At this point I should
also point out that I didn't have time to research this myself, so it's possible that the information that has been provided to me
is inaccurate, in which case I will provide retractions to statements. Anyway, as I understand it AIG was a very successful company
doing all sorts of different financial stuff that I don't feel into going details about. Then some idiot in one of their different
branches decided that they should insure the subprime mortgages. Obviously, that was a huge fuck up, and whoever did that should
be punished, but should everyone in the entire organization? The best analogy I've heard to describe this is fast food.
Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Taco Bell are all the same company. If it's discovered that Taco Bell was serving chihuahua meat,
should the executives at Pizza hut and Burger King be punished as well? If you answered "no", then that explains a lot of these
bonuses. If you answered "yes", I'm curious why. It is also my understanding that the executives in charge of this disaster
are all gone, and experts have been brought in to help save the company. Sticking with the dog meat analogy, consider that a new
expert was brought in to head the operation and try to minimize losses. Obviously they're pretty fucked at this point, but this guy
is able to do what needs to be done to keep the company operational and minimize their losses from $100 billion to $50 billion.
Isn't it worth paying that person to do their job well rather than losing twice as much money?
That all said, I still don't like these bonuses. I understand them and how they could be considered justified, but I'm not a fan.
I'm even less of a fan of President Obama's plan to tax the fuck out of these bonuses, however. How the fuck is that even vaguely
constitutional? Last night Obama appeared on 60 Minutes and stated that we can't legislate out of anger. He then explained
how they were trying to push through a bill to unfairly tax thousands of people who probably don't deserve it just to get back
at a handful of people who MIGHT not deserve it. How is this anything but governing out of anger?
Remember when I said how I don't see why a flat tax can't work? Apparently it's because liberals think that every single American
should be subject to a different tax code, written specifically for them, that takes into account not only how much money they make,
but what industry they're in, their popularity, and other total bullshit factors that have no place in a free, democratic society.
As a dissenting opinion, I expect to be taxed 130%
© 2009 by Dr. Jeebus