Merrill, yes…Morgan Stanley, maybe…Goldman, no…

The real story being missed here is Goldman.

GOLDMAN WAS GOING DOWN! And they should have been allowed to fail.

The bill the Senate passed today to punish innocent people would have OUTRAGED 90% of Americans not too long ago. But the increasingly ignorant masses in this dissolving Republic have consumed a fatal helping of egalitarian shit sandwiches washed down with generous quantities of class warfare Kool-Aid. During the primaries Obama made very clear that this was his ideal. He was asked why he wanted to raise capital gains taxes when it has been shown that doing so actually reduces revenue. His answer was that it makes things fair to the lower classes. WTF!!!

Get your pitchforks and torches out , Congress is leading the charge to drag the new aristocracy out of their ivory towers. I hope the envious and resentful clowns driving this dissaster will eventually have an epiphany when we’re all reduced to eating dirt.

This is common knowledge.

There is so much fabricated outrage leading ro reckless finger pointing leading to shifting stories and atop this is either the most clueless President in history or the next Nixon.

I’ll go along with clueless. Nixon was a bad man but not half bad as president. That One is both a bad man and will be an even worse president.

You know the old expression that came out of the Watergate scandel, “it’s not the crime that gets ‘em, it’s the coverup of the crime that does it.”

There is so much fabricated outrage leading ro reckless finger pointing leading to shifting stories and atop this is either the most clueless President in history or the next Nixon.

You cannot enact legislation that negates an already executed and legally binding contract that has not been breached.

You cannot enact legislation that uses the tax code to punish a select group of people for purely political purposes.

And you cannot start forcing employees (who broke no laws and were acting to fulfill their contract) to hire attorneys to defend themselves against an unruly and irresponsible group of legislators who, frankly, deperately need to be investigated themselves.

Geithner said he did all he could legally to stop the bonuses – but also hinted strongly that he actually knew something about the bonuses earlier than previously disclosed.

Geithner said that he learn the “full scale and scope” of the AIG issue on March 10, as the White House disclosed this week. But when pressed as to whether that was the first time he became aware AIG officials would get bonuses, he repeated that it was the first time he learned of the full scope of the payments.

“And as soon as I heard about the full scale of these things, we moved very actively to explore every possible avenue — legal avenue to address this problem, to make sure that, again, the assistance we were providing was not going to unduly benefit these people,” Geithner said, according to a transcript provided by CNN.

So this scandal now turns on what the definition of “full” is…………sad. Of course Geitner knew, this whole outrage week by the Adminstration starting on Saturday afternoon with choice leaks to the NYT is a Axelrod counterspin construction. EVERYONE in the business and media world knew of the AIG Exec bonuses from the 10Q’s in Nov 08 and the CNN/Bloomberg coverage of AIG bonuses to the Financial Products Division in Jan 09:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auhzcUg60VZA&refer=home

AIG Said to Offer $1 Billion in Retention to Workers (Update1)

About 400 workers at New York-based AIG’s financial products unit may get $450 million in two installments, said two people familiar with the situation who declined to be identified because the plan is confidential. That is in addition to about $619 million in retention pay going to 4,200 executives and employees at subsidiaries including life insurance.

AIG is trying to hold onto employees while it sells businesses to repay a government loan. The insurer took a federal bailout in September after the financial-products unit, which sold credit-default swaps that plunged in value amid the housing market collapse, caused about $34 billion in writedowns. AIG said the program was disclosed before the government rescue, which is now valued at $150 billion.

“I was extremely disappointed — but not surprised — to learn that AIG will be awarding bonuses to the very division that drove the company into the ground,” said Representative Elijah Cummings, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in an e-mail. AIG shouldn’t be awarding “millions of unmerited dollars to employees while at the same time begging the U.S. government for financial life support.”

The fact that “Ali” at CNN didnt press Geitner with quotes from HIS OWN NETWORK and Bloomberg from Jan 09 is a disgrace.

And as a final bonus for you lefties out there, here’s a report from the AP re Obama’s “outrage” when he learned “last week” about the AIG bonuses…what, the President and Leader of the Free World doesnt watch CNN or read Bloomberg, nor does any of the hundreds of economic analysts and advisors who work for him? This is pure Axelrod counterspin lies.

BURBANK, Calif. – President Barack Obama has told Jay Leno he was stunned when he learned of the bonuses that bailed-out insurance giant AIG was paying its employees.

But Obama added the bigger problem is the culture that allowed traders to claim them. He says that’s got to change if the economy is to recover.

According to NBC, Obama was the first sitting president ever to appear on “The Tonight Show.” He’d already appeared twice as a candidate. already appeared twice as a candidate.

In his opening monologue, Leno lots of people were surprised Obama would come on NBC — figuring he’d be tired of big companies on the brink of disaster with a bunch of overpaid executives.

Leno also joked about the dismal state of the economy, saying it’s so bad Obama flew to California on Southwest Airways — making nine stops.