Posted on 03/22/2009 1:42:24 PM PDT by kcvl
Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told CBS News’ Harry Smith on Face The Nation Sunday that the executive branch ought to use its leverage as a majority shareholder in AIG to sue the company for its wrongful use of retention bonuses.
Retention bonuses are to a great extent extortion, Frank argued. “I think there was an element, frankly, with some — not all of them — of almost extortion, where they said, 'We know what you need to know and we will quit if you don’t bribe us,'” Frank said.
He argued that there is a large pool of very talented people who have lost their jobs in the financial crisis and that AIG could replace the bonus recipients (some of whom are responsible for creating the firm's now-toxic assets) rather than bribe them with retention bonuses.
Frank said he did not agree at all with Chairman of Bank of America Kenneth Lewis’ assertion that the proposed taxation of bonuses for employees of companies receiving U.S. government bailout funds could “have the potential to damage the ability of the government to engineer a financial recovery.”
The congressman defended Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saying that he inherited an economic fiasco.
“I know some of my Republican colleagues believe in creationism in which the world started 4,004 years ago. But I don’t think any of them want us to believe that it started on January 20, 2009,” Frank joked, arguing that the initial loans to AIG (totaling more than $173 billion) came from the Bush administration “without any Congressional input.”
"We have the groceries you need to eat, and we won't give them to you unless you pay us."
"I can dig the ditch you want but I won't do it unless you pay me."
And Labor Unions never use “extortion”???
And ACORN never uses “extortion”???
Barney Frank’s friends at Freddie and Fannie made a lot more money than any of these bonuses.
Is he talking about TARP? If so, then I remember a lot of congressional input, especially since I called mine to stop that train wreck.
Bahney Fwank is proof that ANYONE can be a congressman.
Good thing about all this is that Frank is being exposed as the lunatic that he is.
Apparently Frank Rich things the employees belong to the company. He, like most leftards, need to familiarize themselves with the constitution - like the 13th Amendment.
REP. MIKE PENCE, R-IND.
You know, it was back in 2007 that Barney Frank authored a bill that capped executive compensation across the board, well before any bailouts, well before any crisis on Wall Street. And I believe that then-Senator Barack Obama had the companion legislation in the Senate. And now we read this morning that the administration’s talking about broad-based caps on compensation.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003081509
If retention bonuses are extortion, then what would you call campaign contributions to Members of Congress?
Really. When I was young I would never have foreseen that a poofter who talks like Elmer Fudd would be allowed to rise to such a position of power. Or that he would stay in power after one gay lover ran a prositution ring out of his house, and another was installed in a cushy job at Fannie or Freddie. What is wrong with the voters in Massachusetts?
Sure Barney, people are lining up to work at AIG especially after you and your mob put a bullseye on every employee's back. Is he really this ignorant to the results of his actions?
He’s actually incorrect. It was from the Fed, not the Treasury. The Fed is independent and can do whatever the hell it wants. Bush didn’t give them anything.
They won’t be happy until they can tell all of us how much money we can make. That way, they can be the lords and we can be the peons.
Bingo!
Geithner’s new proposals for mechanisms that would push companies to restructure their own executive compensation packages go well beyond limits already in place in the initial Wall Street bailout program, known as TARP, because they will apply even to companies that have not taken government money.
The new rules will focus on “systemically important financial firms,” said a government official with knowledge of the proposal. “The principals of reform are aimed at getting the financial incentives of employees closer aligned with the interests of their overall institutions.”
The executive-compensation recommendations are part of the hotly anticipated financial-regulatory package that Geithner will present Thursday before House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as part of a hearing called “Addressing the Need for Comprehensive Regulatory Reform.”
The biggest part of the secretary’s plan, and also a priority for Frank, is greater control over “systemic risk”: updating regulations to reflect the current reality that it’s not just banks that dominate the financial system, but also insurance companies and hedge funds. It’s a way for the government to oversee financial markets as a whole, rather than the individual components.
http://www.mlive.com/us-politics/index.ssf/2009/03/geithner_to_call_for_new_bonus.html
And campaign contributions are bribery.
Bawney Fwank is a pig...an arrogant gas bag. AND, he is one of the primary cast of characters responsible for this economic crisis, and is continuing to perpetuate it by his vile rhetoric.
It’s time to take back the country.
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