Political Review - realoutlook.com

AIG CEO Edward Liddy took on the ills of the insurance giant with a sense of public service not seen since titans of industry answered the same call during the great depression. His compensation for this task: $1 per year. None the less, the Congress needed a scapegoat to avoid scrutiny from passing a Stimulus Package that included a clause protecting those bonus payments paid by AIG that prompted the public outrage and these congressional hearings. While none of the congressmen grilling Liddy bothered to read the mammoth $787 billion stimulus bill before voting to pass it, they were more than happy to turn the public’s outrage over the $165 million in bonuses toward Liddy rather than having it reflect on their own incompetence and deception. (more…)

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, Democrat from California, began dragging Wall Street titans from failed institutions in front of his committee on Monday to answer for the world wide credit crisis that has devastated markets around the globe. There is no doubt, as confirmed by their own testimony, that greed in these institutions ran rampant with generous bonuses being dolled out to parting executives even as those institutions became insolvent and headed toward bankruptcy. These true confessions make for great theater and give those affected by the rapidly declining economy a target for their disgust and frustration but ignore the fact that the primary cause of the failures were the non-performing portfolios dominated by sub-prime mortgages generated in staggering dollar amounts under guidelines set by the quasi-government mortgage institutions of Fannie Mae [FNME] and Freddie Mack [FMAC]. (more…)