Penny Dumb, Dollar Dumber

By Amit Singh | Friday, March 20th, 2009 | Policy

So let’s recap. Everyone complained the reason we are in our current economic crisis was because of “greed” and lack of proper oversight. Regardless, we “had” to bailout one of those greedy bankers with $85 billion and in turn they enjoyed a lavish $440,000 executive retreat. Then we voted for Change and government accountability. So now with even more bailout money, those same greedy bankers give themselves bonuses amounting to $165 million about which the Fed had known about for months.

Putting on his Fiscal Responsibility mask, Treasury Secretary Geithner is penalizing AIG for the amount of the bonuses and the entire Administration is acting very tough and upset. But all this ignores a more important issue. The $165M in bonuses were less than 0.1% of the money received by AIG. What is going to be done with the remaining 99.9% of the taxpayer money that was given to them with virtually no oversight?

And if that wasn’t enough, the Fed decided to create another $1,200,000,000,000 out of thin air. It truly reminds me of when in Dumb and Dumber, Harry and Lloyd spend all their money on ridiculous gifts for themselves and repay for them using worthless paper IOUs. Except in this case, I’m not sure if there is going to be a happy ending.

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