once again our king george

does NOT disappoint. he and big big big bid-nez (i.e. the good ol' whiteboy network) are suckling off each other. we? well we're not getting fed at all

not only are the fat cats getting fatter, but rome is burning. on top of ALL OF THAT, we don't know how this money is being spent OR where it went

Executive Pay Limits May Prove Toothless
Loophole in Bailout Provision Leaves Enforcement in Doubt
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Congress wanted to guarantee that the $700 billion financial bailout would limit the eye-popping pay of Wall Street executives, so lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation and penalizing firms that break the rules.

But at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change to the provision, congressional aides said. The change stipulated that the penalty would apply only to firms that received bailout funds by selling troubled assets to the government in an auction, which was the way the Treasury Department had said it planned to use the money.

Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts. In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives. ........

stunned

(not really, of COURSE they're taking their bonuses). good ol' white boy network AT WORK

AIG Gives ‘Retention’ Pay After Scrapping Bonuses (Update2)
By Hugh Son

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc., the insurer that said yesterday it scrapped bonuses for top executives after a U.S. bailout, will still pay 130 managers “cash awards” to stay with the firm, including $3 million to retirement services chief Jay Wintrob.

Wintrob, 51, will get the “retention” payment in two installments, the first in April 2009 and the rest a year later, New York-based AIG said today in a regulatory filing. The firm previously disclosed the program in a Sept. 26 filing and said today that Wintrob and Chief Financial Officer David Herzog elected to get the payments four months later than planned.

“The expectation from the public and Congress was that they weren’t getting bonuses, not that they’d be pushed off by several months,” said David Schmidt, a consultant at executive pay firm James F. Reda & Associates. “That clearly violates the spirit of AIG saying they’ll forgo their bonuses.”

Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy is encouraging top employees at AIG subsidiaries to remain so the units retain their value while he finds buyers. The insurer is selling businesses, including the U.S. retirement group Wintrob heads, to repay a $60 billion loan included in the expanded government rescue package AIG got this month. ...........

i am by NO means

sticking up for these guys. i know if i met them i wouldn't like them. they're NOT my kind o' peeps. i know this article is 100% on point. the big three auto makers (of the good ol' white boy network mind you) made a GIANT mistake by flying those (separate) corporate jets to dc. however, why are we singling THEM out? why didn't we put up a BIG STINK on some of the OTHER companies we actually DID 'bail out' (although the bail out doesn't seem to be working now does it)? why not bring THEIR asses out front and ask THEM some embarrassing questions. such as what type of bonuses do the execs get? what sort of perks do they get? what sorts of trips and parties are you going to plan within ahhhhhhhhhh lets say two months of us giving you billions and billions of dollars? what the government did was wrong. they put money into the hands of the WRONG people and organizations. joe and josette six pack are STILL suffering and will continue to do so. i don't even know how i feel about bailing out the auto industry. i know we've ALREADY made way too many mistakes though

Auto Execs Fly Corporate Jets to D.C., Tin Cups in Hand
By Dana Milbank
There are 24 daily nonstop flights from Detroit to the Washington area. Richard Wagoner, Alan Mulally and Robert Nardelli probably should have taken one of them. Instead, the chief executives of the Big Three automakers opted to fly their company jets to the capital for their hearings this week before the Senate and House -- an ill-timed display of corporate excess for a trio of executives begging for an additional $25 billion from the public trough this week.

"There's a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands," Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) advised the pampered executives at a hearing yesterday. "It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?" ..............