Dodd - I tried to stop it.

[GreyICE]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/03/18/tsr.dodd.aig.bonus.intv.cnn

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/finance/dodd-cracks-aig---time/

Dodd Amendment Rules

* Crack down on bonuses, retention awards and incentive compensation: Bonuses can only be paid in the form of long-term restricted stock, equal to no greater than 1/3 of total annual compensation, and will vest only when taxpayer funds are repaid. There is an exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.
*
* For institutions that received assistance totaling less than $25 million, the bonus restriction applies to the highest compensated employee; $25 million to $250 million, applies to the top five employees; $250 million to $500 million, applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 10 employees; and more than $500 million applies to the senior executive officers and the next top 20 employees (or such higher number as the Secretary determines is in the public interest)

Posted because even on a skeptical board where people should know better than to trust that everyone has their best interest at heart and is not attempting to deceive them, people apparently somehow still trust things without even checking sources.

Hopefully I've done my good deed for the day on curing stupid.

 

[ravdin]

Is Dodd your uncle or something? Why take such umbrage at the public criticism that, as the chair of the Senate Banking committee, he richly deserves?

Your post is old news and the day after the article you cited came out, Dodd changed his story.

After first denying it, Dodd admitted he agreed to a request by Treasury Department officials to dilute an executive bonus restriction in the big economic stimulus bill that Congress passed last month. The change to Dodd's amendment allowed AIG to hand out the bonuses and sparked a blame game between Dodd and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jOV59FNo4z3TqJoYhy51P-VQ9GMAD971SBC82

 

[GreyICE]

Is Dodd your uncle or something? Why take such umbrage at the public criticism that, as the chair of the Senate Banking committee, he richly deserves?

Your post is old news and the day after the article you cited came out, Dodd changed his story.



http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jOV59FNo4z3TqJoYhy51P-VQ9GMAD971SBC82

Did you even watch the interview?

I'm angry whenever a group of idiots gets out their pitchforks and torches to burn one man when things were decided by a committee for far more complicated reasons than cited. It's like people's little minds are too feeble to grasp the concept that multiple people can arrive at a bill that has oversights, and such oversights are not necessarily the result of evil malicious blackguards out to burn villages, rape women, and terrorize the just.

The facts remain thus:

Point: Dodd did not want executives to get bonuses when their companies were doing so poorly that they had to be bailed out.

Point: Dodd drafted an amendment specifically to stop this (not some other senator. Dodd).

Point: After working with the rest of the senate, the house, and the treasury department, as well as I'm sure a host of legal advisors, they arrived at the final form of the amendment, by consensus.

Point: Said amendment happened to allow bonuses contractually granted before a certain timeframe because the treasury department didn't want to go into those legal waters (and trust me, there'd be lawsuits - that's straight up breach of contract).


After reviewing said points, am I supposed to believe that Dodd WANTED these bonuses? Am I supposed to believe that his goal was to allow AIG to hand out these bonuses? That he thought it was a good idea? Is anyone expected to be that stupid?

Apparently, yes. They are.


I can't really believe you're defending this line of 'thinking.'

 

[ravdin]

After reviewing said points, am I supposed to believe that Dodd WANTED these bonuses? Am I supposed to believe that his goal was to allow AIG to hand out these bonuses? That he thought it was a good idea? Is anyone expected to be that stupid?

Apparently, yes. They are.

I can't really believe you're defending this line of 'thinking.'

I've called Dodd's judgment and competence into question, but not his motives. So I'm unclear what line of 'thinking' you believe I am defending.

Regardless of what outcome Dodd wanted, the fact remains that he was entrusted with a great deal of responsibility, and he failed to act in the public interest. He is also on the record admitting that he allowed the bonuses to go through, the day after making a denial. There's plenty of blame to go around, but I find it incredible that none of it falls on the shoulders of the chair of the Congressional committee that brokered the deal.

 

[GreyICE]

I've called Dodd's judgment and competence into question, but not his motives. So I'm unclear what line of 'thinking' you believe I am defending.

Regardless of what outcome Dodd wanted, the fact remains that he was entrusted with a great deal of responsibility, and he failed to act in the public interest. He is also on the record admitting that he allowed the bonuses to go through, the day after making a denial. There's plenty of blame to go around, but I find it incredible that none of it falls on the shoulders of the chair of the Congressional committee that brokered the deal.

He screwed up. At the end of the day... big deal. It CAN'T happen again, thanks to the language he put in there, and it's a minuscule fraction of the bailout. They were contractual obligations that AIG was under, and there would have been a mess of legal wrangling if the government tried to dissolve those contracts. At best, it would have been a couple million and 5 years in court. At worst, it would be the same and the judge would rule the government can't do that anyway, so they would have gotten them anyway.

And for this we have someone suggesting AIG paid him off, lying that he masterminded this, and generally acting like a bunch of whackjobs.

And the sad part? We don't even know where a lot of the bailout money went. A LOT of it. Not this piddling sum of cash, 0.1%. Like... 10s, 20s of percents. And they've managed to throw the entire media off this by dragging a herring about.

And you all are stupid enough to fall for it. Good job. Good, good job. That'll be underplayed, but bonuses? Oh noes.

THAT doesn't require any investigative reporting, so gods, we'll be all over that.