The honest, successful businessman has no reason to feel anything but fear of the Obama Administration,

Perhaps those companies weren’t as honest as thought.

…
A private sector executive who did what Obama just did – hand over a gigantic sum of money in a poorly-negotiated deal, to be immediately made a fool of by his new “business partners” – would be gone now. No board of directors, no stockholders would tolerate this kind of cosmic-level incompetence, especially in light of Obama’s overall poor performance – and stockholders would be loudly asking how someone with Obama’s absurd resume could have been hired as CEO in the first place. But, instead, we’re stuck with this guy for years, as once again politics renders an economic actor completely immune to the consequences of his actions.
The honest, successful businessman has no reason to feel anything but fear of the Obama Administration, which will need plenty of revenue from “overly profitable” companies to finance its habit of picking market winners and losers. Not only is America, Inc. stuck with the incompetent CEO who was just made to look like a fool by his pals at AIG, but there’s every reason to think he’ll be worse in the future, doubling down on every bad investment and launching expensive new projects, even though the company’s books are bleeding red. And the CEO of every other “company” in the global marketplace knows it – it would be bad enough if America Inc. operated in a vacuum, but it doesn’t, and some of the competitors are noted for making hostile takeovers.
Doctor Zero on March 17, 2009 at 12:27 AM

Great post.

hawksruleva on March 17, 2009 at 10:27 AM

Nice talking point, but if they were on the brink of bankruptcy, that is not enough to save them.

Don’t let them pay the bonuses and let the company kill itself.

It’s also not much compared to the $700 million that AIG loses if just ONE of those guys does a poor job, and fails to adjust their portfolios for just 1 interest rate change of 1 basis point. And these guys make that sort of decision every day.

lastly – if AIG doesn’t pay the bonuses, then the CDS holders can claim that it’s a “cross default” which means they can leave AIG (and us) holding the bag on the credit default securities. Does THAT sound like a good deal? Those securities are, after the bubble’s burst, billions, in debt that would crush AIG, and start the domino effect of businesses shutting down.

It’s also a drop in the bucket compared to the money that the govenrment wastes every day.

Doctor Zero on March 17, 2009 at 12:27 AM

Honest business hasn’t existed at least since Reagan.

sven10077 on March 16, 2009 at 6:30 PM

You’re one president off.

This can only be a distraction so people will not look at how painfully inept the Barcky admin has been to date.

Comment by JD — 3/16/2009 @ 8:58 pm (Patterico)

No matter how outrageous those AIG bonuses are, the simple truth is that Obama and his people handed over the cash, and now they look like blundering morons with guns in their hands, as they panic and toss out ideas like writing bills of attainder against AIG. We’ll recoup that bonus money in taxes! What a great idea. We’ll just cripple the company we bailed out with huge taxes, which they’ll avoid by various methods that will shift the costs back into the general economy… or maybe rock AIG hard enough to where they demand a fresh new bailout, reminding everyone that they’re still “too big to fail,” and Obama might be looking at impeachment if he lets them go down after spending all the tax money on the first bailout to prop them up. When you pay the danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. Net effect: millions of taxpayer dollars poured into the pockets of politically-connected executives.

Meanwhile, the panicky bluster of the administration scares the dickens out of an already unstable market.

A private sector executive who did what Obama just did – hand over a gigantic sum of money in a poorly-negotiated deal, to be immediately made a fool of by his new “business partners” – would be gone now. No board of directors, no stockholders would tolerate this kind of cosmic-level incompetence, especially in light of Obama’s overall poor performance – and stockholders would be loudly asking how someone with Obama’s absurd resume could have been hired as CEO in the first place. But, instead, we’re stuck with this guy for years, as once again politics renders an economic actor completely immune to the consequences of his actions.

The honest, successful businessman has no reason to feel anything but fear of the Obama Administration, which will need plenty of revenue from “overly profitable” companies to finance its habit of picking market winners and losers. Not only is America, Inc. stuck with the incompetent CEO who was just made to look like a fool by his pals at AIG, but there’s every reason to think he’ll be worse in the future, doubling down on every bad investment and launching expensive new projects, even though the company’s books are bleeding red. And the CEO of every other “company” in the global marketplace knows it – it would be bad enough if America Inc. operated in a vacuum, but it doesn’t, and some of the competitors are noted for making hostile takeovers.

HondaV65 on March 16, 2009 at 5:30 PM

Doctor Zero on March 16, 2009 at 5:51 PM

Thank you. Wish I’d said it so well.

GET MY MONEY BACK!!!!!!!!!

The best will be the videos of the sobbing Executives as they are forced to confess that they do have valid contracts and are sentenced to a mandatory 2 min of Hate.

Getalife can run the cameras! Think of the ratings!

“When they came for the Catholics, I said nothing, because I was not a Catholic”.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090316/ap_on_re_us/aig_cuomo

The American Government people owns 80% of AIG and they aren’t acting like owners.

Wow, we own AIG! This is so cool! We’ll be rich! What a great investment!!!!!!!!!