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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Cal  Thomas :: Townhall.com Columnist
Channeling Anger
by Cal Thomas
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One of the more familiar sayings in politics is "don't get angry, get even."

The anger caused by using millions in taxpayer bailout money to pay "retention" bonuses to current and former AIG employees and to fund banks that mostly won't tell what they did with the money is an object lesson for all of us. It offers taxpayers an opportunity to "get even" with those who have violated the U.S. Constitution, helped put our nation in peril and spent us into economic servitude to the Chinese.

President Obama has said he is angry, too, but he wants that anger to be "channeled" so that it might do the most good. I agree with the president. But where should that anger be channeled? The president wants to channel it in ways that will create more government regulation of banks. The New York Times reported Sunday that the president "will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation."

Is that the best way to channel our anger so that it will do the most good? Should Congress and the regulatory authorities, which have failed so spectacularly and at every level (and in both parties), be allowed to manage and repair the financial damage they helped cause? Can they be trusted with even more power to invade private industry, overrule stockholders, and effectively run more and more companies? This is what totalitarian societies do, isn't it? The answer isn't more laws; it's enforcing the laws already on the books. The solution can be found in proper oversight, not in overlooking transgressions.

Those busloads of people who last weekend descended on Connecticut neighborhoods where AIG executives live were in the wrong place. And by the way, who ordered up that little charade and media opportunity? It sounds like something MoveOn.org, or some other left-wing political outfit might do in order to divert attention from the real culprits, who are located a few hundred miles south in Washington, D.C. Continued...

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About The Author
Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the book, "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America".
 
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Allow me to help, ty Grover Norquist
In 2007 the dems installed in congress and the dow began to slide - because everyone knew that the Bush tax cuts were then set in stone to expire in two years, becuase the dems would not extend them.
Now just imagine if the THEIFS in Congress now did one simple thing - WROTE A BILL THAT MADE THE TAX CUTS ON DIVIDENDS AND CAPITAL GAINS PERMANENT.
We'd have one heckuva jumpstart from that alone - they have all been planning on their expiration, sullenly counting and trying to include the tax losses in their books... and that immediate reversal would free up a lot of dough and pick up the spirits of the market and the investors.
Have you seen the evil dems do that ?
NO.
They have done something worse- THEY HAVE GUARANTEED MASSIVE TAXING in the years to come - and now they HATE wall street bonuses (or so they posture) - still who wants to be dragged in front of a bunch of vile hypocritical scribes and falsities on their holier than thou lib screed, and still you have to jam millions of dollars in their pockets after their public superiority lying display.
I could care less if they die, in fact I hope they do. Really, it would be great.

Too big to fail
The question noone seems to be asking is how many "too big to fail" companies are all over and out there on every wall street there is.
It seems to me that AIG is an example of a near empty shell - and if you watched Geithner's testimony, we are supposed to believe that the total loss derivatives crew company (the ones who guarded their bonuses in contract before their burning ship went down) - has a bunch of TRIPLE A + financial equities that the government can, with taxpayers money at half, and private investment the other half, buy up with 7X leverage, and have an absolute near perfect chance of getting all the money back and maybe making some.
The question is, if that were true, why would AIG need the government to do it ?
Yes, it was quite a fancy circus, timmy yappering out how the burning ship crew of AIG secured their massive bonuses as their worthless derivatives crumbled and they told themselves our creditors are coming after us - and NOW- after mor3e emltdown, timmy is buying triple A+ rated stuff from the burned out shell of AIG at the bottom of davey jones locker.
It's no wonder the financial criminal wizards whipped up new and untenable instruments that they could all suck a few hundredths in fees from everytime they traded and swapped and finagled them around in one giant 300 trillion dollar SUCKING SOUND.
The truth is they just leeched what little value there was after the loan company got their cut for making the loan, and another cut for bundling and selling, and the rating agency took their bit, and the brokers took their chunk - and the derivativers kept raking their cut off - DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS -
There is NOTHING there. No there there, my friends - and the hope now is THAT THE ILLuSION OF VALUE CAN BE KEPT ALIVE....
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