Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he opposed the 90 percent tax on AIG bonuses that passed the House. “I don’t support bills of attainder,” he said, to loud applause. He said he opposed the idea of controlling the salaries and bonuses of TARP-taking executives, focusing More…
Reading the resignation letter from the former AIG executive who had nothing to do with credit default swaps but has been vilified regardless, you see the other side of the story, a way to feel some sympathy for top financial executives caught in the same crisis that’s More…
This resignation letter in The New York Times today from an AIG executive in the financial products unit explaining the bonus controversy from his point of view probably will be flying around the blogosphere today. In the letter to AIG CEO Edward Liddy, the executive, Jake DeSantis, says it’s not More…
Tonight, President Obama is reiterating his plan for getting the country’s economy back on track, the emphasis again on investments in health care, energy, education and infrastructure — the tangible, bricks- and-mortar types of things that are decidedly not reliant on housing bubbles and credit default swaps.
Housing advocates are reminding us that the foreclosure crisis at the root of the economic collapse is also a long ways from ending. And the numbers are startling.
Without government help, 2.4 million homeowners will lose their homes to foreclosure this year, according to the Center for Responsible Lending More…
For those who’ve been wondering whether Congress can really just vent its anger at those $165 million in AIG bonuses by levying a 90 percent tax on the bonuses of all executives who receive bailout money, the answer is: probably, yes.
The outrage over AIG bonuses is dying down, but it is only being replaced by a blame game. According to critics, President Obama went too far in his populist pronouncements against banks, and his administration, led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is bungling the rescue effort. Banking executives have More…
This is more embarassing than damaging, but it turns out that Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan and co-chair of its Af-Pak strategy review, was on the board of AIG from 2001 to 2008. Here’s the what-did-the-administration-know-and-when-did- it-know-it:
Obama named Holbrooke as a special
Patrick O’Connor explains why Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) broke with the rest of the House leadership and voted for the punitive AIG bonus tax.
Cantor is playing the outside game. Since becoming whip in the wake of a second straight anti-GOP wave election in 2008, the Virginian has quickly
When the White House economic team last month rejected a Senate-passed stimulus amendment that would have taxed bailed-out companies at 35 percent for 2008 bonuses, sponsor Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) vowed he’d be back later for another try.
Today, he made good on that promise.
rss