Czar Geithner

It appears that Secretary Geithner is of the opinion that he is more qualified than anyone to control the country's recovery during the current financial crisis. He feels the Treasury Department should have unlimited power in "guiding" non-bank financial institutions, such as AIG and Morgan-Stanley. He seems to be of the opinion that if Treasury had that power last September, none of the current miss would have occur, at least not to the current degree.

Rather bold statement. Even though I am not thrilled with the practices of AIG, Morgan-Stanley and the rest, and I most certainly believe there need to be stronger rules and regulation in place, the idea of allowing the Treasury Secretary all of the power Geithner wants is a little frightening. After all, this is a guy who couldn't remember to pay his taxes.

Do we really want to give him the potential power to go take over companies and destroy lives, if he thinks there is a threat? What controls will be place over the Treasury Department to keep them from becoming the Gestapo?

Perhaps we will learn more tonight when President Obama addresses the nation.

Limited control and responsibility is good, absolute control leads to too much power in too few hands.

We will have to keep a careful eye on the Administration.

Its Common Sense!

AIG Bonus Payments

I saw a head line that AIG must pay bonuses to its employees, even though it ended up in the red and took a hefty amount of tax payer money to stay solvent. Here is the article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_bi_ge/aig_bonuses



Needless to say I do not care what contracts AIG employees signed prior to the bailout. Without the bailout money, AIG would be bankrupt, and the employees unemployed. Now, they are going to use taxpayer money to provide these bonuses, although they plan to restructure bonuses in the future.



Give me a break. The company failed and is only surviving at tax payer expense. As an involuntary share holder of AIG, no one has offered me any bonus. Why should those who took the company into debt get a bonus?



These are questions I will be asking my representatives and probably the president because I find this the worst kind of rip off.



I will be posting my letters in the near future.



Send your own letters and be heard. Its our country and our money. We need to have our say.



Its Common Sense!

Bad News Continues

Last night President Obama during his news conference said he did not want to steal Treasury Secretary Gethner's thunder regarding the next phase of the bank/Wall Street bailout. Today it was evident why, there was no thunder.

Gethner offered very little, and scared the market, making stocks drop, especially stocks in banks. I thought the deal was that Gethner was going to have a plan for government, industry and the banks to go hand in hand to start building up the economy. Looks like that is not going to happen. So just what is Gethner's plan and how will it work? I fear that I am as confused as the rest of the commentators.

Another piece of disturbing news is that several judges in California want to start emptying out the prisons due to over crowding. They are talking in terms of fifty percent. I don't know how they are going to decide who gets to go, but I know I am glad I am not in California.

The state attorney general plans to fight the decision all the way to the Supreme Court, but the tragedy is that the state's financial and criminal situation is so bad that some criminals have been sent to out of state prisons. I don't know what the answer is, but I believe more prisons make better sense than letting criminals lose.

The freeing of prisoners is something that could be considered in other states. We will all do well to see just what current legislation is pending in our state houses.

Times are tough, but we shouldn't make them tougher by putting hardened criminals on the streets.

Its Common Sense!