From the Arizona Republican Party:
Wednesday, March 24, 2009
DEMOCRATS PROPOSE SHREDDING CONSTITUTION IN EFFORT TO SAVE FACE
Phoenix, AZ – Randy Pullen, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, and treasurer of the Republican National Committee, was critical of the Democrats move to seize bonus money paid to AIG employees by legislating punitive tax code.
Pullen believes, as do many others, that passing legislation specifically targeting AIG executives would constitute a “bill of attainder” meaning that a group of people have been found guilty of a crime without having been given a fair trial by a court of law. Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution reads: “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
“Using the power of their office to go after individual Americans who have upset them is frightening. It is AIG employees this week and maybe it will be Ford employees next month or maybe Google executives who have angered them about something else next year. This is no way to run a third world country let alone the United States of America.”
Congressional Democrats are in a frenzy to fix this glaring political error on their part. As has been reported, U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), introduced language into the stimulus bill protecting these employee bonuses. Now Democrats want to tax them away in order to cover up the misdeeds of one of their own. “They are willing to trample the constitution and set a dangerous precedent for this country,” said Pullen.
While the Democrats may feel pious and exonerated by their actions, it is contrary to the very fabric on which our great republic was founded. Perhaps next time, the Democrats will do a better job of reading and reviewing, and understanding the ramifications of legislation they pass before it becomes law,” concluded Pullen.
Showing posts with label AIG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIG. Show all posts
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Dodd's Wife a Former Director of Bermuda-Based IPC Holdings, an AIG Controlled Company
March 23, 2009
By Kevin Rennie (Kevin Rennie, a former Republican state senator, is a columnist for the Hartford Courant. He can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com)
No wonder Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) went wobbly last week when asked about his February amendment ratifying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at insurance giant AIG. Dodd has been one of the company's favorite recipients of campaign contributions. But it turns out that Senator Dodd's wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well.
From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an "outside" director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG. IPC, which provides property casualty catastrophe insurance coverage, was formed in 1993 and currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion and trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IPCR. In 2001, in addition to a public offering of 15 million shares of stock that raised $380 million, IPC raised more than $109 million through a simultaneous private placement sale of 5.6 million shares of stock to AIG - giving AIG a 20% stake in IPC. (AIG sold its 13.397 million shares in IPC in August, 2006.)
Clegg was compensated for her duties to the company, which was managed by a subsidiary of AIG. In 2003, according to a proxy statement, Clegg received $12,000 per year and an additional $1,000 for each Directors' and committee meeting she attended. Clegg served on the Audit and Investment committees during her final year on the board.
IPC paid millions each year to other AIG-related companies for administrative and other services. Clegg was a diligent director. In 2003, the proxy statement report, she attended more than 75% of board and committee meetings. This while she served as the managing partner of Clegg International Consultants, LLC, which she created in 2001, the year she joined the board of IPC. (See Dodd's public financial disclosure reports with the Senate from 2001-2004 here.)
Dodd is likely more familiar with the complicated workings of AIG than he was letting on last week. This week may provide him with another opportunity to refresh his recollections.
(Source, Maricopa County Republican Committee)
***********
By Kevin Rennie (Kevin Rennie, a former Republican state senator, is a columnist for the Hartford Courant. He can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com)
No wonder Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) went wobbly last week when asked about his February amendment ratifying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at insurance giant AIG. Dodd has been one of the company's favorite recipients of campaign contributions. But it turns out that Senator Dodd's wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well.
From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an "outside" director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG. IPC, which provides property casualty catastrophe insurance coverage, was formed in 1993 and currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion and trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IPCR. In 2001, in addition to a public offering of 15 million shares of stock that raised $380 million, IPC raised more than $109 million through a simultaneous private placement sale of 5.6 million shares of stock to AIG - giving AIG a 20% stake in IPC. (AIG sold its 13.397 million shares in IPC in August, 2006.)
Clegg was compensated for her duties to the company, which was managed by a subsidiary of AIG. In 2003, according to a proxy statement, Clegg received $12,000 per year and an additional $1,000 for each Directors' and committee meeting she attended. Clegg served on the Audit and Investment committees during her final year on the board.
IPC paid millions each year to other AIG-related companies for administrative and other services. Clegg was a diligent director. In 2003, the proxy statement report, she attended more than 75% of board and committee meetings. This while she served as the managing partner of Clegg International Consultants, LLC, which she created in 2001, the year she joined the board of IPC. (See Dodd's public financial disclosure reports with the Senate from 2001-2004 here.)
Dodd is likely more familiar with the complicated workings of AIG than he was letting on last week. This week may provide him with another opportunity to refresh his recollections.
(Source, Maricopa County Republican Committee)
***********
Monday, March 23, 2009
SHADEGG WANTS SOME ANSWERS FROM TREASURY SECRETARY
The following press release from Congressman John Shadegg's office speaks for itself.
Washington, Mar 19 -
WASHINGTON – Congressman John Shadegg (AZ-03) released the following statement after the House vote to retroactively tax the AIG bonuses [H.R. 1598], concerning questions about Secretary Geithner and his prior knowledge of those bonuses:“
What did Secretary Geithner know about the AIG bonuses and when did he know it? Is his claim not to have known about this until last Tuesday believable? Two recent and startling developments seriously call his claim into question.
“Yesterday, in sworn testimony before the House, AIG’s chairman, Ed Liddy, declared that the Federal Reserve and Fed Chairman Bernanke knew about the bonuses not days or weeks ago – but three months ago. And who was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve at that time? Tim Geithner.
“And, back in September, when the original AIG bailout was being structured, who was one of its principal architects? Again, Secretary Geithner.
“We have now also learned from no less than Senator Chris Dodd that the Treasury asked him in February to put a provision in the stimulus to protect these bonuses. And who was head of the Treasury at the time? Once again, Tim Geithner.
“These shocking revelations demand immediate answers.“
How could Geithner have been so intimately involved in the AIG bailout, head of the New York Federal Reserve when the Reserve was informed of the bonuses, head of the Treasury when the department asked for the provision that helped secure these bonuses, and supposedly one of the greatest experts on Wall Street today – and not have known about them?
“Sadly, it appears that Secretary Geithner is either dishonest or incompetent.
“Perhaps the Senate should have paid more attention to Geithner’s tax errors after all.”
###
Washington, Mar 19 -
WASHINGTON – Congressman John Shadegg (AZ-03) released the following statement after the House vote to retroactively tax the AIG bonuses [H.R. 1598], concerning questions about Secretary Geithner and his prior knowledge of those bonuses:“
What did Secretary Geithner know about the AIG bonuses and when did he know it? Is his claim not to have known about this until last Tuesday believable? Two recent and startling developments seriously call his claim into question.
“Yesterday, in sworn testimony before the House, AIG’s chairman, Ed Liddy, declared that the Federal Reserve and Fed Chairman Bernanke knew about the bonuses not days or weeks ago – but three months ago. And who was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve at that time? Tim Geithner.
“And, back in September, when the original AIG bailout was being structured, who was one of its principal architects? Again, Secretary Geithner.
“We have now also learned from no less than Senator Chris Dodd that the Treasury asked him in February to put a provision in the stimulus to protect these bonuses. And who was head of the Treasury at the time? Once again, Tim Geithner.
“These shocking revelations demand immediate answers.“
How could Geithner have been so intimately involved in the AIG bailout, head of the New York Federal Reserve when the Reserve was informed of the bonuses, head of the Treasury when the department asked for the provision that helped secure these bonuses, and supposedly one of the greatest experts on Wall Street today – and not have known about them?
“Sadly, it appears that Secretary Geithner is either dishonest or incompetent.
“Perhaps the Senate should have paid more attention to Geithner’s tax errors after all.”
###
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Newt Gingrich - Bankruptcy, Not Bailout for AIG
Newt Gingrich comments on the AIG bonus outrage in his weekly email.
Bankruptcy, Not Bailout
by Newt Gingrich
"Outrage" is the word on everyone's lips to describe the fat bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds to the failed executives at AIG - and it is an outrage.
It's an outrage that the American people are being asked to pay for the bad behavior of people who should have known better, be they reckless traders on Wall Street or reckless borrowers on Main Street.
But the cure for our outrage is not merely, as President Obama is demanding, that AIG be prevented from paying its executives. The $165 million in planned bonuses - as manifestly undeserved as it is - is chicken feed compared to the $170 billion in taxpayer funds AIG has received so far.
Nor is it acceptable to ask Americans to keep throwing their tax dollars at failed companies and their leaders.
The answer is an old fashioned one: AIG should choose between receivership or bankruptcy. It should not be allowed to choose more bailouts from the taxpayer.
Restore the Rule of Law: Allow Failing Corporations to go bankrupt.
Under U.S. law, Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to reorganize. Chapter 7 allows a company to dissolve itself.
The choices for AIG, as both an insurance and non-insurance company, are more complicated, but ultimately boil down to the same options. And for other companies either receiving or looking to receive a bailout from the taxpayers, the option should instead be bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy would send a needed message to U.S. investors: Don't assume the government will bail you out when you do something stupid.
And most importantly, bankruptcy would replace the rule of politicians over U.S. financial institutions with the rule of law.
Geithner Didn't Inherit the Policy of Throwing Billions at Failing Companies - He Helped Create It
Because when it comes to Washington's handling of the financial crisis, so far we've had the rule of politicians, not the rule of law.
Most prominent among the politicians in question is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
As Americans' level of outraged has risen, so has the level of finger pointing by Geithner and others for the mess we're in.
But Treasury Secretary Geithner is disingenuous at best and untruthful at worst when he says that he "inherited the worst fiscal situation in American history."
The truth is that Secretary Geithner didn't inherit the policy of throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at failing companies - he helped create it.
Even before he was Treasury Secretary - when he was still head of the New York Federal Reserve - Geithner was so deeply involved in the government's bail out of Bear Stearns, its take over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and its bailout of AIG that this was the Washington Post's headline from September 19, 2008:
"In the Crucible of Crisis, Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner Forge a Committee of Three".
The first meeting of the first bailout - of Bear Stearns - was held in Geithner's office. And the first meeting of what has become a $170 billion bailout of AIG was held - where else? In Geithner's New York Fed office.
Why Not Bankruptcy for AIG? Because Wall Street Wouldn't Have Done As Well
From the outset, Geithner was central to the developing policy of having the taxpayers bail out ailing financial institutions like AIG rather then allow them to go bankrupt. And for months now, we've been told that these bailouts were necessary to avoid a wider, cataclysmic, financial meltdown.
But now it's clear that other, less noble, considerations were at play.
As the Wall Street Journal editorialized yesterday, the real outrage over the AIG bailout isn't executive bonuses, it's that billions in taxpayer funds intended for AIG have been passed through to benefit foreign banks and Wall Street behemoths like Goldman Sachs.
And as former AIG CEO Hank Greenburg testified last October, these financial institutions wouldn't have faired as well if AIG had filed for bankruptcy protection rather than do what it did, which was to negotiate a bailout with Timothy Geithner's New York Federal Reserve.
Here's how Greenburg put it:
"Although AIG stockholders could have fared better if the company had filed for bankruptcy protection, other stakeholders - like AIG's Wall Street counterparties in swaps and other transactions - would have fared worse."
For the Cost of Bailing Out AIG, Every American Household Could Have Free Electricity For a Year
So now everyone is outraged, and rightly so. But the lavish executive bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds are just the beginning of the story.
So far, the American taxpayers are on the hook for $170 billion to AIG - that's an astounding $1,224 per taxpayer.
What else could we have done with all this money?
$170 billion would pay for more than doubling the Navy's fleet of aircraft carriers.
$170 billion would pay for a four-year education at a public university for more then two million Americans.
$170 billion would cover the electricity bill of every household in America for an entire year.
When You Reward Failure, All You Get is More Failure
What Washington should learn from all this outrage is to return to the common sense that should have guided it all along: When you reward failure, all you get it more failure.
A company that needs a $170 billion taxpayer bailout is a failed company. The executives that led that company are failed executives. But instead of having to face the consequences of their failure responsibly through bankruptcy or receivership, AIG and its Wall Street "counterparties" are being rewarded for their recklessness - with our money.
Thanks to the Bush-Obama-Geithner policy of bailing out failing companies, we now have the worst of all possible scenarios: A taxpayer subsidized, government supervised private company; an unsustainable public/private hybrid that is too public to make its own decisions and too private to be responsible to the taxpayers that are keeping it alive.
Outrages like the fat cat bonuses currently dominating the headlines will only continue as long as the rule of politicians supplants the rule of law on Wall Street.
Congress should rethink this entire process. The dangers of a domino-like financial meltdown are real. But so, too, is the danger that the outrage of the American people will reach the point that we no longer trust the dire warnings - or the righteous indignation - coming from Washington.
Your friend,
Newt Gingrich
Bankruptcy, Not Bailout
by Newt Gingrich
"Outrage" is the word on everyone's lips to describe the fat bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds to the failed executives at AIG - and it is an outrage.
It's an outrage that the American people are being asked to pay for the bad behavior of people who should have known better, be they reckless traders on Wall Street or reckless borrowers on Main Street.
But the cure for our outrage is not merely, as President Obama is demanding, that AIG be prevented from paying its executives. The $165 million in planned bonuses - as manifestly undeserved as it is - is chicken feed compared to the $170 billion in taxpayer funds AIG has received so far.
Nor is it acceptable to ask Americans to keep throwing their tax dollars at failed companies and their leaders.
The answer is an old fashioned one: AIG should choose between receivership or bankruptcy. It should not be allowed to choose more bailouts from the taxpayer.
Restore the Rule of Law: Allow Failing Corporations to go bankrupt.
Under U.S. law, Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to reorganize. Chapter 7 allows a company to dissolve itself.
The choices for AIG, as both an insurance and non-insurance company, are more complicated, but ultimately boil down to the same options. And for other companies either receiving or looking to receive a bailout from the taxpayers, the option should instead be bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy would send a needed message to U.S. investors: Don't assume the government will bail you out when you do something stupid.
And most importantly, bankruptcy would replace the rule of politicians over U.S. financial institutions with the rule of law.
Geithner Didn't Inherit the Policy of Throwing Billions at Failing Companies - He Helped Create It
Because when it comes to Washington's handling of the financial crisis, so far we've had the rule of politicians, not the rule of law.
Most prominent among the politicians in question is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
As Americans' level of outraged has risen, so has the level of finger pointing by Geithner and others for the mess we're in.
But Treasury Secretary Geithner is disingenuous at best and untruthful at worst when he says that he "inherited the worst fiscal situation in American history."
The truth is that Secretary Geithner didn't inherit the policy of throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at failing companies - he helped create it.
Even before he was Treasury Secretary - when he was still head of the New York Federal Reserve - Geithner was so deeply involved in the government's bail out of Bear Stearns, its take over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and its bailout of AIG that this was the Washington Post's headline from September 19, 2008:
"In the Crucible of Crisis, Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner Forge a Committee of Three".
The first meeting of the first bailout - of Bear Stearns - was held in Geithner's office. And the first meeting of what has become a $170 billion bailout of AIG was held - where else? In Geithner's New York Fed office.
Why Not Bankruptcy for AIG? Because Wall Street Wouldn't Have Done As Well
From the outset, Geithner was central to the developing policy of having the taxpayers bail out ailing financial institutions like AIG rather then allow them to go bankrupt. And for months now, we've been told that these bailouts were necessary to avoid a wider, cataclysmic, financial meltdown.
But now it's clear that other, less noble, considerations were at play.
As the Wall Street Journal editorialized yesterday, the real outrage over the AIG bailout isn't executive bonuses, it's that billions in taxpayer funds intended for AIG have been passed through to benefit foreign banks and Wall Street behemoths like Goldman Sachs.
And as former AIG CEO Hank Greenburg testified last October, these financial institutions wouldn't have faired as well if AIG had filed for bankruptcy protection rather than do what it did, which was to negotiate a bailout with Timothy Geithner's New York Federal Reserve.
Here's how Greenburg put it:
"Although AIG stockholders could have fared better if the company had filed for bankruptcy protection, other stakeholders - like AIG's Wall Street counterparties in swaps and other transactions - would have fared worse."
For the Cost of Bailing Out AIG, Every American Household Could Have Free Electricity For a Year
So now everyone is outraged, and rightly so. But the lavish executive bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds are just the beginning of the story.
So far, the American taxpayers are on the hook for $170 billion to AIG - that's an astounding $1,224 per taxpayer.
What else could we have done with all this money?
$170 billion would pay for more than doubling the Navy's fleet of aircraft carriers.
$170 billion would pay for a four-year education at a public university for more then two million Americans.
$170 billion would cover the electricity bill of every household in America for an entire year.
When You Reward Failure, All You Get is More Failure
What Washington should learn from all this outrage is to return to the common sense that should have guided it all along: When you reward failure, all you get it more failure.
A company that needs a $170 billion taxpayer bailout is a failed company. The executives that led that company are failed executives. But instead of having to face the consequences of their failure responsibly through bankruptcy or receivership, AIG and its Wall Street "counterparties" are being rewarded for their recklessness - with our money.
Thanks to the Bush-Obama-Geithner policy of bailing out failing companies, we now have the worst of all possible scenarios: A taxpayer subsidized, government supervised private company; an unsustainable public/private hybrid that is too public to make its own decisions and too private to be responsible to the taxpayers that are keeping it alive.
Outrages like the fat cat bonuses currently dominating the headlines will only continue as long as the rule of politicians supplants the rule of law on Wall Street.
Congress should rethink this entire process. The dangers of a domino-like financial meltdown are real. But so, too, is the danger that the outrage of the American people will reach the point that we no longer trust the dire warnings - or the righteous indignation - coming from Washington.
Your friend,
Newt Gingrich
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