printMichelle Malkin makes an important, if limited, point when she writes the following about the ponces in Congress. They indeed have some nerve pointing fingers at other parasitical incompetents:
“How nauseating to hear the growing chorus of lawmakers on Capitol Hill inveighing about the AIG bonuses and the rewarding of incompetence. This, after the Senate refused to give up automatic pay increases for themselves and Nancy Pelosi refused to give the measure a hearing. Congress sez: Incompetence bonuses for me, but not for AIG. Spare me.”
Of course, “Congress played major role in AIG mess,” as it has in our credit woes.
But the larger issue here is interventionism. You may be surprised to learn that I am completely indifferent to anything that our Kenyan kleptocrat inflicts on business leaders and their bonuses if they have been bailed out.
Take what you get; you’re Barack’s bitches now.
Economist Ludwig von Mises warned that the road to socializing the means of production is paved with interventionism. Middle of the road interventionism leads directly to socialism.
AIG has made common cause with the State. Now that the State owns a good chunk of the company, it gets to regulate and terrorize its corporate lackeys; take over operations completely, and sink the whole sorry ship with all on board.
And don’t let anyone on the Left try to tell you that this is the culmination of the unfettered free-market. Lies. This is the outcome of fascism, corporate cronyism. Let those who partake in this system suffocate in its deadly embrace.
Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal, would have allowed unviable industries to fail. Under freedom, no one would survive at the expense of another.
Update (March 18): The corrective chaos that’ll come with state takeover is obvious: companies, CEOs especially, will see that it is better to go bankrupt, and look for other, honest employment, than become the state’s bitch. How can anyone suggest that the contracts of those who suck at the state’s teat ought to be sacrosanct? As far as I’m concerned, state employees ought to be denied the vote too. Contract law is a feature of the voluntary free market, not a prerogative of the plundering class.
I wonder how long til you guys have telescreens installed in your living rooms.
Yes, let them suffer under the monster they created. They deserve it.
Naturally, this is the camel’s nose under the tent. This gets the sheeple cheering for the concept of government controlling ‘greed’. Our businesses will be next.
Just as naturally, I won’t produce under such conditions. If I can’t get out, I’ll go flip hamburgers someplace.
Frankly, I’d be glad to double the pay of Congress and the President if they would OBEY the Constitution!!!- fat chance! The country did have limited government and honest politicians a long time ago.. See this excellent article by Robert Higgs:
http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1329 – 47k
My hero, Grover Cleveland, vetoed a bailout of $ 10,000 to drought-stricken farmers by stating “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution; and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering…” The drought stricken farmers of 1887 were far more “deserving” than the AIG bunko-boys but a CLASSICAL LIBERAL like Cleveland vetoed the bailout on principle (principle!!). Sadly, the Malkins or Barney Franks shift the issue of principle by focusing instead on personal trivia such as pay perks, bonuses, or private jets while ignoring the general immorality of bailing out anyone. In fact, the bailouts will only encourage more irresponsible “insurance” of ridiculous derivative transactions by confiscation of personal property through coercive taxation and Federal Reserve currency debasement. Even if Congressmen and AIG executives lived like the Amish, the bailout would be utterly wrong.
But you are not indifferent to contract law. Regarding the bonuses some AIG executives are going to receive: “The bombshell revelation from State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo came as Congress warned AIG execs to return their millions in bonuses – or face a possible new law taxing those payouts at up to 100%.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/03/17/2009-03-17_aig_bonus_checks_may_be_taxed_at_up_to_1.html
If such a law passes, you can expect it to be used as a permanent federal piggy bank, to be used whenever this or that bonus is considered by the elite to be “excessive” (or maybe just when they’re broke). If anyone still has a notion that our Senate is not made up of despotic swines interested only in cultivating their own power under the guise of populism, this should put it to bed.
JD wrote:
“Naturally, this is the camel’s nose under the tent.”
More like a hyena’s nose. The next sound you here will be the cracking of bones.