Congress explicitly made provision for AIG to pay out their $165 million in bonuses. When they did so, people got rightfully angry about a company that lost $100 billion in one year using government money to pay out the very people who made the decisions that led to the loss. So naturally, Congress and the President, ever the defenders of the people, have wasted untold amounts of time, energy and - of course - government money trying to cater to this week's poll numbers instead of doing anything productive to reverse the direction of the economy. (The most productive thing they could do is all go home, but I digress.) Even if they do get all the money back, they will probably still wind up losing money by the time they pay all the legislators to come up with their brilliant plan to get it back and the IRS for designing and implementing the mechanism to get it back. But at least they'll get re-elected, which is obviously good for America.
In a completely unrelated story, the 2009-2010 federal budget deficit is projected to be $1.845 trillion. $1,845,000,000,000. The same man who campaigned against President Bush (who wasn't running) partly due to his establishment of the largest budget deficit in history, $482 billion, has quadrupled that deficit in two months. Not to mention the fact that this deficit (an annual net loss in for-profit terms) is 18 times as large as AIG's 2008 loss, and over 10,000 TIMES AS LARGE as the bonuses AIG paid out. But Congress is OK with that, because, well, just because, OK? They're smarter than you. They'll handle it. You just turn over all your assets and your entire paycheck and we'll take care of everything. Don't worry, you'll get your allowance as long as you do your chores.
Ron Paul gets more correct every day. We need another revolution in this country, and not the revolucion that's happening right now.
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