Let's start with AIG. As I was listening to a talk radio guy (Doc Thompson, 1140AM, WRVA in Richmond, Va - 3pm-6pm) that I have a whole lot of philosophical commonalities with, he said something that struck me. He said that we should stop thinking of AIG as a recipient of government largesse and realize that we (American citizens) have basically bought a majority shareholder stake in a commercial enterprise. So you, I and every other American now owns 1/300,000,000th of 80% of AIG. AIG wasn't just given money, they sold us a stake. Unlike GM, they weren't loaned money. They sold us something - the hugely majority share of the company.
So that got me thinking. Of course, the scary part of that thought is how much our elected representatives will want to fiddle around with the company. But let's skip that fear for the moment. If you look at AIG you will see a highly profitable company that has been bitten in the ass by basically one division/department/business unit. They are a huge company with many successful lines of business. They have already replaced the CEO and what I would assume is the executive staff that were responsible for the downfall. So with that in mind we have to consider the big bonus dust up and the fiddling.
The President, the Congress, and pretty much everyone else needs to stop micro-managing these bailout companies. If they are to recover and stand on their own again they need top quality people. Should we be rewarding the folks that got those companies into this mess? Probably not. But let's not paint entire companies, or their employees, with the same brush. As an investor in many other companies, I don't pretend to know how to run them. We should not
pretend to know how to run AIG.
Taking Congress's newly announced taxes on not just these bonuses but the severely limited compensation potential for any company that has taken bailout money, they have effectively reduced the quality of the workforce they can hire. And by extension they are single handedly causing these companies to take even longer to recover, potentially causing them to need more bailout money, and putting our children even deeper in debt.
By pandering and fomenting this class warfare mentality the Obama Administration and politicians on Capital Hill are laying the groundwork for further economic meltdown. Which may just be the point.
On to the AG
In case you missed it, the Attorney General of the US is in the process of following the marching order to close down Gitmo. That has the big complication of what to do with all of the detainees that are current residents. Now keep in mind, these aren't folks that were caught in some white collar drag net, they weren't just sitting around in their home having dinner, they were on the field of battle and were captured. I wont' get into the discussion on whether they should classified as POWs, Enemy Combatants, or even detainees. Honestly,
that is not my concern at the moment.
My concern is that these folks have been captured in action against our troops and have been held in detention for a long time. Let's even take the far left view that all fo these fellas are "victims" and being wrongfully held against their will by the US government. So I imagine they don't like us very much whether they are rightfully or wrongfully being held. I know I wouldn't be a big fan of the US.
But the AG is actually considering releasing these fine folks into the US if they can't find another country that will take them.
Seriously.
How in the world can this be allowed to happen? We might as well offer up some government subsistence for terrorist cells. Let's get the CIA to start rounding up terrorists and holding networking sessions so they can meet their new compatriots. Since the Teleprompter President loves websites so much, maybe we can setup terrorist-linkedin.gov or maybe some job training so they don't blow themselves up before they reach their target.
We've already found that a large number of former Gitmo residents end up back in al-Qeada or the Taliban. What makes these lilly livered liberals think that would be any different if we dump them into American society?
And dont' get me started on how much money we surely will throw at them to "get their start" here in the US.
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