Geitner needs to go! The Treasury Dept. should welcome lawsuits! One word: DISCOVERY!

[ddeclue]

The Treasury Department should cut these greedy bastards off at the knees and tell them to bring it on!

They should WELCOME lawsuits by AIG's execs because it would give them the legal standing to crawl up their asses with a scanning electron microscope under "discovery".

They wouldn't DARE sue the Treasury to ask for their 165 million in undeserved bonuses - no jury would ever give them dime one! The civil trial would probably lead to federal fraud and then RICO charges. Let's see if they are so convinced they deserve their bonuses that they are willing to risk it. Ante up boys!

:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:
:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:
:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:
:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:
:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:
:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke:

[polichick]

1. Could lawsuits have delayed or stopped the stimulus bill though??

My question at this point is this: Was Geithner acting as someone who has been too much a part of the culture on Wall Street, or was he (with the President's encouragement) acting to ensure that the bill wasn't derailed?

[ddeclue]

4. Nope... there was gonna be a stimulus bill either way. Stop trying to make an excuse.nt

[polichick]

6. As many here know, I'm the last person to make excuses for ANY of the players...

Your response is reactionary and doesn't begin to answer my question ~ unless you're an attorney who deals with this sort of thing, you couldn't possibly answer it.

Geithner still has some explaining to do before I'll have an opinion about his motivation.

[ddeclue]

7. You don't have to be an attorney to know that the stimulus bill was going to pass

regardless of any lawsuits. Your response is apologist.

Doug D.

[polichick]

8. Except I'm not apologizing for anyone - just need more info before...

...posting a bunch of explosions. (And obviously you don't have the necessary info.)

[ddeclue]

11. You asked whether a lawsuit could delay the stimulus.

The answer is NO.

The stimulus is an act of Congress and the courts are not going to tell Congress what it can do. They can only rule after the fact.

This isn't law school stuff - this is basic US Govt 101 from high school.

How hard is it to understand?

:eyes:

[polichick]

15. Well, I said from the beginning that Geithner and Summers looked like bad choices...

...so I won't be surprised if you are correct and there was NO good reason to do what Geithner did here ~ I'm just trying to wait until we hear more. If it wasn't a serious problem with lawsuits, was he just doing what Obama told him?? We don't know Obama's part in the decision yet.

Arianna Huffington just suggested on Morning Joe that Treasury probably killed the Snowe-Wyden Amendment too ~ that also stinks!

[Thrill]

2. Stop trying to make Geitner take the Blame for Bush's bullshit

They bailed AIG out in Sept. Thats when the restrictions should of been made

[JimGinPA]

3. + 1,000,000

:thumbsup:

[ddeclue]

5. NOPE - I'm blaming Geitner for Geitner's bullshit...

READ THE OP!

He's afraid of a LAWSUIT???

Why can't Geitner find the cajones to say "bring it on"?

THAT is what I'm angry about with Geitner - it opens all sorts of opportunity to root out the corruption on Wall Street but he's a chickenshit about it.

Doug D.

[Thrill]

9. Again. There is no threat of a lawsuit. If The Bush Administration

did what they were supposed to do regarding the bonuses.

[ddeclue]

12. The point is that Geitner is AFRAID of lawsuits - he should be WELCOMING them

because it gives the Treasury Department an opportunity to engage in DISCOVERY and investigate the hell out of AIG and others in the name of defending the "lawsuit" which

a) No jury would ever pay dime one to the plaintiffs on.

b) Even if they did magically win it would be a trivial expense compared to the cost of the stimulus.

We NEED to investigate Wall Street and ferret out all the corruption and bring some confidence back to it by sending the crooks to jail. Discovery in a civil suit would be an excellent way into the door. But Geitner is too busy being either a coward or co-opted by Wall Street.

I believe that these AIG people would NEVER sue the U.S. Government if they had to face the discovery process in civil court because it would lead to fraud convictions and then RICO convictions. There is NO upside there to go after the 165 M because no jury would ever give it to them - they'd rather tar and feather them. There's only the downside of discovery.

Doug D.

[MarjorieG]

13. Geitnner has to save the world's economy first.

[slipslidingaway]

10. Why didn't Geithner place restrictions on bonuses? n/t

[slipslidingaway]

14. September 2008 meeting with Geithner...

http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12270

"...September 16th, 2008: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then headed , by Timothy Geithner, provides an $85 billion line of credit to AIG that gives the federal government a 79.9% stake in AIG:

On the evening of September 16, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank's Board of Governors announced that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had been authorized to create a 24-month credit-liquidity facility from which AIG may draw up to $85 billion. The loan is collateralized by the assets of AIG, including its non-regulated subsidiaries and the stock of "substantially all" its regulated subsidiaries, and has an interest rate of 850 basis points over the three-month London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) (i.e., LIBOR plus 8.5%). In exchange for the credit facility, the U.S. government will receive warrants for a 79.9 percent equity stake in AIG, and has the right to suspend the payment of dividends to AIG common and preferred shareholders...."



Geithner Skips FOMC Meeting to Stay in New York
September 16, 2008, 3:56 PM ET

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/16/geithner-skips-fomc-meeting-to-stay-in-new-york/


"While Fed officials gathered in Washington to decide to leave short-term interest rates unchanged, Geither was in New York where insurer AIG’s future remained in doubt..."

[SuperTrouper]

17. And now he did not know about the bonuses? And AIG and Citigroup are not

extending credit to the American people (using money to bail out UBS, banks in Germany, England and France and Citigroup building a $10 million dollar Executive suite?) And now the government thinking of creating a new entity to allow credit to flow to the American people because the banks that we bailed out are not doing it? This thing have legs and we need to change the culture of corruption in Wall Street and Washington, DC. Boy, Obama has a tough job to do...

[slipslidingaway]

18. Hard to say what he knew and when he knew it....

but he was involved with the bailouts going back to Bear Stearns.

A few days after the meeting in September, AIG filed a form with the SEC regarding some bonus money to be paid.

:shrug:


http://rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/aig-giving-cash-awards-a-new-term-for-bonus-to-130-managers/

"December 4 2008

Here is a copy of the letter that Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and a member of the Joint Economic Committee, sent Edward Liddy, President & CEO of AIG, yesterday.

December 1, 2008

Mr. Edward M. Liddy


...In form 8-K dated September 22, 2008, and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), AIG disclosed the following: “On September 22, 2008, a retention program of American International Group, Inc. (”AIG”) became effective. The program applies to approximately 130 executives and consists of cash awards payable 60 percent in December 2008 and 40 percent in December 2009..."

[Skwmom]

16. Not unless they are worried about someone spilling the beans.

Did AIG engage in the underwriting of insane insurance policies to guarantee investments in real estate instruments b/c they were so stupid they thought it was a great idea OR was AIG used as a means to make all of the big investment players whole (i.e., did they write the insurance policies to make the American taxpayer pick up the tab for all the lousy investments).

Something about the official AIG story just doesn't make sense. I wonder how many wealthy investors would have went bankrupt if their real estate investments had not paid off?

We are constantly told they had to keep the credit flowing. Well, why couldn't the government get credit flowing through local banks or through setting up its own "bank?"