TEN THOUGHTS ON AIG from DAVID FRUM
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 8:56 PM

Taken from NewMajority.com

1. If I worked at AIG, I'd be ashamed to take a bonus, and I am dismayed that anybody there could feel otherwise.

2. The evidence is accumulating that the Obama administration has been much, much less than candid about its AIG decision-making. In particular: for the president to argue that Tim Geithner did not "draft" the bonus clauses in the AIG deal is disingenuous. Of course he did not draft them. Nor did he sweep up the room afterward. He was head of the New York Fed! But he did sign them, so he is responsible.

3. The Obama administration's defense of these bonuses makes things worse. They seem to be representing the AIG bonus-takers as successful blackmailers: We had to agree to pay them or else they would blow up the world economy. That's not a very appealing argument - and it is not an exactly reassuring signal about how the Obama administration would respond to actual terrorists or actual blackmailers.

4. All that said: a contract is a contract - and a contract signed by the US government is something more than an ordinary contract. There can be no reneging.

5. The only thing worse than contract-breaking by the US government would be an attempt by Congress to impose special onerous taxes on a small, discrete group of unpopular people. If that's not unconstitutional, it ought to be.

6. In this matter, Congress has behaved in ways that are simultaneously hysterical, thuggish, and deeply hypocritical. Barney Frank's demand for the release of the names of bonused employees is the lowest, an open invitation to lynch law.

7 Some AIG employees have already voluntarily surrendered their bonuses. When will members of Congress voluntarily return their AIG campaign contributions? And what about you, President Obama?

8. From the start, AIG has been handled with a shocking lack of transparency. Why did it take so many months to identify the counterparties who are receiving taxpayer money via AIG?

9. The role of Goldman Sachs in all this is especially troubling and mysterious. Much more than the names of the bonused AIG employees, I'd like to know the name of the Goldman PR person who persuaded Reuters to report that Goldman was receiving none of the AIG money when in fact it received more than anyone.

10. I fear, I truly fear, that AIG may mark an ideological turning point in American history, a moment that marks the beginning of a sharp turn toward more regulation, more statism, and more populist anti-business feeling. Bitterly ironically, it will be the people who did most to provoke today's outrage whose party will benefit most from it.

The first 50 days

Democrats were quick to usher in the demise of conservatism after this past election in the Age of Obama. Many people touted that conservatives lost when the Republicans suffered the defeat at the polls. But I will remind you, that it was only after the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter that we got a true conservative leader, President Ronald Reagan.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference that was held on February 26-28, there was record attendance with more than 8,500 and over half in attendance were students. All came to rally and reassure those who proclaimed our demise; our conservative principles did not die on November 4^th. Do the liberals have a yearly conference to rally the troops or are they too involved with trying to legalize marijuana, hugging a tree, building a wind-mill, or miscalculating the effects of “global warming”?

It took a bad economy that began in the Nixon and Carter years to get Reagan so if you ask me, it’s looking pretty good for conservatives right now. The economy began to collapse under President Bush, not by his doing alone, and it seems to be getting worse with President Obama and his policies that bring us closer to a state of collectivism everyday. The Dow has plunged below 7000, unemployment is still rising despite what all believed would be the consequence of electing the “Messiah” as some would have him called. Many have learned that President Obama is not a friend of the free-market and despite being “pro-choice” he is not a friend to the worker who does not wish to unionize, wishing to take away his right to choose if he wants to be represented by a union or not.

President Obama is already looking to introduce “universal healthcare” because he says that healthcare costs have skyrocketed over the past few years… maybe he should look at some of the Democrat’s favorite constituency, the trial lawyers, and ask them why the cost of healthcare has risen at such a rapid rate. It is because of excessive lawsuits that have driven up the premiums of a doctor’s liability insurance which aided in the rise in the cost of healthcare.

What about spending? Candidate Obama talked about fiscal responsibility over the campaign and the idea that he would not be one to stand idle as senators and congressmen got away with passing legislation laden with earmarks, but besides some of the spending in the Stimulus bill, the current appropriations bill termed the Omnibus Spending Bill to provide the funding for the rest of the government until year end September 30, this bill has over $7.7 billion in earmarks tallying to over 8,500. Is this going to be another campaign promise that gets broken by the administration who said they were going to be transparent, not hire lobbyists, and bring America together? And just think, it has only been 7 weeks and we didn’t even talk about the three-plus Trillion dollar budget he introduced…

To leave you on a lighter note, did you hear about the difference between the two Messiahs? Jesus saves, Obama spends.

Tax cuts from Gutfeld.

MONDAY'S GREGALOGUE: THE ANTIDOTE

One of the big topic of conversations around dinner tables (or in my case, a lunch box filled with discarded ears), is Obama's tax philosophy. Some find it confusing - for he claims he's for tax cuts, yet he's still raising taxes for some Americans (otherwise known as rich jerks).

Now, here's the thing: if the president is going to cut taxes for something like 96 percent of the population, then he`s got to think that tax cuts are good. I mean, you don`t do something to 96 percent, unless it works.

So, why not just go to 100 percent?

Seriously: Imagine having a classroom full of kids waiting for a flu vaccine. Do you only give it to 96 percent of the class? No - if you believe there`s an antidote that repairs what's wrong, you don't leave any one out.

But here, we do.

The question, then, is why.

Well, It's not because we need the revenue, because that cash from the top 2 to 4 percent won't help.

So then, why?

Oh yeah - that four percent is "rich." And if you've been basting in the sauce of class warfare most of your life - the rich need to be punished, even if all they've done wrong is get rich.

Which is a nasty form of negative reinforcement. Look, if you're going to get nailed for elevating yourself to a higher financial class, after awhile, you`re going to think, "Why bother."

And then, "Is that meth?"

Worse, the definition of rich? Bull crap. What's rich in one area, is poor in another. A family can live happily on 75 grand in Kansas, but in Manhattan, they'll be turning tricks for oatmeal. Inevitably, the so-called rich are going to have to move out of cities, so they can live on skimpier means – which means a lot of whiny Columbia grads wandering confused at Ace Hardware.

And that's something we can all live without.

-By Greg Gutfeld, taken from Dailygut.com