TMQ with TMI
Tuesdays on ESPN.com, Gregg Easterbrook writes the “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column, which is often tedious, rambling, and so undiluted as to be almost insurmountable. Nonetheless, his sports insight can be entertaining, but what I find interesting is that includes just as much non-sports commentary that is often smarter. An example from his latest:
Why Are Taxpayers Paying Lavish Bonuses to Retain the People Who Screwed Up AIG?
American International Group, the insurance giant that has swallowed $152 billion in federal subsidies in just a few months, “plans to pay $503 million in deferred compensation to some of its top employees, saying it must tap the funds to keep valuable workers from exiting the troubled insurance giant,” Carol Leonnig of The Washington Post reported a few days ago. I suspect all the gold being shoveled to AIG is a colossal blunder by the George W. Bush administration. Money to reinforce Fannie Mae or to buy stock in banks may or may not be a wise decision, but at least there is accountability regarding where the funds end up. The money being shoveled to AIG is simply vanishing — AIG isn’t even telling the Treasury Department what the money is for. When the General Services Administration buys pencils, many layers of auditors check the deal. Isn’t it a tad naive to think $152 billion can be entrusted to a firm with a demonstrated track record of financial mismanagement and that money is not going to be looted? The Treasury Department’s handling of AIG appears to be spectacular irresponsibility with public money.
The people who work here give away your money to the Wall Street rich. But they ask tough questions! Such as, “How much do you want?”
Now, about the $503 million in tax-subsidized bonuses to prevent “top employees” from “exiting the troubled insurance giant.” The top employees of AIG are the ones who drove the company into the ground by making crazy deals, taking on bad debt or promising to insure bad debt when they knew AIG lacked adequate collateral. Those “top employees” at AIG are either cheats or incompetents — we want them to leave! They haven’t demonstrated any financial expertise. Yet the same AIG top managers who did a terrible, terrible job are set to receive huge bonuses: an example of the problem that corporate bonuses are awarded regardless of performance.
Management-suite types often rationalize huge bonuses by threatening to jump to another job. What job exactly would a top AIG employee jump to? The financial services industry is contracting; lots of well-qualified people with strong résumés are out on the street; no financial firm in its right mind would hire a failed manager from AIG over the fully qualified financial managers looking for work. AIG top employees have no career options right now; it is inconceivable any other financial firms are offering them lavish raises to hire them away. So “retention bonuses” aren’t necessary. But either the Treasury Department is too dim-witted to realize this or it doesn’t care and is merely trying to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the rich by allowing tax-subsidized bonuses that the giveaway team at Treasury knows perfectly well are not merited.
Side note: You might think, “How could the fancy-degree top people at Treasury possibly be that completely, utterly stupid?” But Treasury officials have a self-interest in maintaining the assumption that financial managers should receive gigantic bonuses regardless of performance. Almost everyone at the top of Treasury came from the firms being bailed out, plans to return to such firms and wants to pocket gigantic bonuses regardless of performance. So not only is the Treasury Department acting irresponsibly with tax money but its top executives have a personal stake in irresponsible action.
Sure he’s just telling us what we are all thinking, but in a sports column? He is also very hard on NFL coaches, which is always music to my ears. For what its worth, extra-heavy mayo is straight-up diabolical.
O’Reilly vs. Stewart - uncut
OK, here’s the deal. He is trying so hard to be funny…I think. You be the judge. However, Papa Bear doesn’t say anything that really surprises you until the last 30 seconds. If he truly believes that object is what he thinks it is, then I am speechless.
This is ouuuur countryyyyyyyyyy….
They tried so hard to equalize the craziness between the two parties, but that was an insurmountable challenge even to The Daily Show.
Sarah Palin: Grifter
Wake up America
A Little Monday Pick Me Up
The Daily Scarab in the Butt Post
Do you people see now why I keep saying that GlazedNConfused hates me. I cry myself to sleep every night because of it. That said - IRONY KNOCKS. Check it out. It is not that I am a doomsayer, or actually have a scarab beatle living in my anus (I did have one there at one time, through odd surgery involving a chimp, a router tool, and three marshmellows we managed to get it free), it is that I have realized for years that our “system” is, as gamers like to say, “BORKED” - which means broken.
The article I posted talks about how several states told the fed gov that things were awry in the housing market - it also goes on to talk about how their concerns were hushed (through uses of words such as STFU and “do you like your children?”) by the Bush adminstration. GASP.
PS - (in an article?) I am starting a fund called the “Why does GlazedNConfused Hate Thraxxus So Much? Fund”. Please contribute!
A little humor despite the recession
Vote or Die?
BlinkinBlogs Liberals?
The question was raised a while back by one of our three readers if we here at BlinkinBlogs.com are liberals. I will now answer that question.
- There are several BlinkinBlogs writers. I know all of them as I recruited them to our cause - whatever the hell that is. I can assure you that no two of them are completely alike in thought or perspective. In fact that is why I recruited them. They do have one thing very important in common though - they are all very intelligent professionals.
- I cannot speak completely on behalf of my fellow writers with regards to which way they lean but I can tell you this: I am not a Liberal, however I am also not a Conservative. I fall into this weird hybrid category of someone who is actually openminded enough to listen to what everyone has to say on any matter as I know one thing is true: I don’t know everything.
- GlazedNConfused also comes across like a liberal sometimes. I don’t know if he is but I will tell you this about him - GnC is a skeptic if one ever existed. That does not mean the man is close minded at all - quite the contrary - but he does like his facts and he likes them to be somewhat believable - not sure what that is in his eyes but I swear its true. That said, he also is more than happy to point out BS when he sees it - like most of my articles.
- Enigma is this really smart savant esque guy who is right on the edge of being anti-social to a point of Obie Wan Kenobi. In contrast I am as anti-social as Obie Wan Kenobi - actually I am more so and look like a sand person to boot. Enigma enjoys banter, pointing out stupid, and owning MANY GUNS. I can’t say he is liberal or conservative but I do know he believes in the right to bare arms.
- Five0ClockCharlie comes from a very military backed family and thus has had serious interaction with that world. It has empowered him to see many things that most civilian types, like GnC, Me and Enigma, never get to see. Consequently he doesn’t pipe in nearly as often as I’d like and has a difficult time spouting off as some things he knows about he probably should never say publicly. All that aside he is a dork/nerd/computer geek and thus is pretty fond of freedom. In effect, he is the most politically confused person I know as he likes liberal stuff but is inundated by his family with conservative perspectives. I do not envy him.
- MoMajic has more education that all of the rest of us combined. He is directly involved in governmental affairs and writes for many publications of various degrees. He is a world traveller and has a very interesting background. That said I have no clue what the guy is. I can say that he loves logic, proper design, and well thought out anything - but then again who doesn’t?
In closing we are not pinko liberal commies - or whatever McCain is calling them now. That said we are also not conservatives. Basically nobody here is a feather on either wing. All we are is a bunch of educated professionals who like to point out stuff that smells quite a bit like shit and say “Hey.. have you smelled this?”