Well, it’s directly related to the reason stated in my prior article about the initial bonus payout that was made public last year in 2009. Here it is as I stated last March:

“… the government was already privy to AIG’s plan to payout bonuses months in advance. For that reason, the government’s apparent outrage seems to be a sham. Their scrutiny is for the sake of appearing vigilant of corporate use of taxpayer dollars – a move that will help taxpayers feel that their money is under the watchful eye of the administration.”

The government’s reaction and the media fiasco were a ploy, a front, and a public relations stunt to cast the illusion that the government would be vigilant of the corporate state. After all, AIG was propped up by the taxpayers’ dollars so the public’s outrage at AIG’s decision to use taxpayer funds to line their own pockets is certainly justified. In light of that outrage, it was handled by the government and media tagteam with sympathy and agreement:

- The Sympathy

The government and the media sympathized with the public’s dissatisfaction in a superficial way.

- The Agreement

They wiped the tears from the public eye and told everyone (in essence) that, “things will be alright, we’ll make sure [AIG/ bailed out corporations] don’t do this again. They’ve got a lot of nerve spending your money like this and we’re just as mad as you are”.

- The Solution

The people sobbed and had their eyes patted with public relations kleenex, trustingly nodded their head to the assurance that it wouldn’t happen like that again. AIG actually ended up paying back bonuses and it looked like a victory in favor of the public’s sentiment. Triumphant at last.

Meanwhile the government and media zoomed in on the 165 million dollars of the 170 billion paid last year. That was a a petty 0.097% of the total bailout money given at the time. This helped them ignoring the question of how the rest was being spent. They pretended to scrutinize the hell out of that fraction of money and gave the notion of condemning the use of the funds and all the while there were billions more taxpayer dollars in queue for AIG with no viable measures in place to prevent expenditures such as bonus payouts from happening again.

So it happened again, as expected.

Except this time I haven’t heard of any presidential press conferences of condemnation. In fact, there was never any real condemnation in the first place. It was all just a ploy to make you think your opinion mattered.

Doctor Martin Luther King Junior was not simply a great oratory minister, nor was he merely a protagonist for American civil rights. Instead, he was a proponent of worldwide civil liberties. Implementing the Gandhian philosophy of non-violent civil action he led a movement that overwhelmed the pivotal segregationists’ stronghold of Alabama. Strategically, it was seen as the capital of Southern racial divide. Consequently, the victory in Alabama sent reverberations throughout the south and echoed a painful defeat to the racially schismatic statutes of the southern states.

His leadership proved that the most aggressive attack is often not the most physically combative. The hands of patience and discipline can be more decisive than the teeth of vicious canines, the pressure of fire hoses, the blow of nightsticks, and police brutality combined. Much respect to Doctor King, a figurehead in an ongoing struggle to balance social inequities. Read more about Doctor King, as written by himself in his profound book, Why We Can’t Wait. +

 We are financially weak. How come? 

Because of our dependence on being employed by a company to sustain our living and, for some, our sanity. Without getting hired by someone else, the majority of us employed could not survive. If we were to lose our jobs there are likely three predicaments that’d come to light:

1)      We would have no passive income to rely on

2)      We would have no accumulated savings to rely on for six months or more

      3)      We would have no idea how to create our own money and be

            financially self-sufficient

If we all had self-generated income sources other than our jobs to sustain our living it wouldn’t make much of a difference if the impact of unemployment and underemployment reached one in six Americans and the fact of the gunman recently losing his job would most likely not be mentioned. The fact that we don’t is a sign of our financial weakness, our financial dependence, and our general lack of financial education. We need to learn how to make our own money.  

Many of our financial destinies are in the hands of the employers. This fosters over-dependence and weakness since, without employers’ pay, we’d have no financial vitality whatsoever. The extent of our education and self-education in creating our own economic opportunities and determining our own financial destinies is limited or non-existent. It’s evident since, as demonstrated in a wide range of economic news broadcasted reports over the last year, the moment that employers start laying off employees there is a frenzy about how we will sustain our living needs (i.e. utilities, mortgage, food, transportation). Just think the following questions for a moment:

       1)      Would that type of discussion exists if we knew we could create own 

            money and our economic opportunities?

      2)      Would broadcasts, such as the one on Democracy Now, feel as

            inclined to recite statistics of unemployment, underemployment, or

            point out a gunman’s recent job loss to insinuate it being causal of his

            rage?

The answer is no!

If we felt that we had total control of our financial destinies we would care less. Instead of reciting statistics about the percentage of Americans unemployment and underemployed or insinuating connections between job loss and a crazed gunman, we’d be better off reciting ways on how to get our own money irregardless of a job so that we can be more financially autonomous and gaurded from the dire impacts of job loss.

Although being unemployed or underemployed unsatisfactory for many, I bet that most of us would care much less about losing our jobs if we knew we could make our own money.

There has been recent taxpayer and administrative outrage over the American International Group, Inc. (AIG) use of government bailout money to pay employee bonuses. There have been strong and widespread sentiments of dissatisfaction and rebuke for AIG’s actions after the company used $165 million dollars to pay the bonuses to its executives. This comes after receiving $170 billion dollars in government bailouts paid for with taxpayer dollars. Alongside continuing debate about the use of taxpayer funds for the purpose of bailing out private companies AIG’s actions have been perceived as a misuse of government bailout funds.

On March 16^th, President Obama delivered a public address to small business owners and congressman in response to the news claiming AIG’s use of the funds irresponsible. Standing in front of the podium, he sternly asked, “I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” AIG’s justification is that it had contractual obligations to make the bonus payments and, if it chose not to payout the bonuses, could face lawsuits. Evading breach of contract sounds reasonable but it has not been palatable for taxpayers and politicians that still claim AIG’s actions as ridiculous.

After a few days of mounting pressure from taxpayers, media, and politicians, AIG chairman and CEO Edward Liddy asked AIG executives to give back their bonuses on March 18^th.

Major Points to Consider

During this time of outrage there are several important points to consider. These three points prove this instance with AIG to be negligible. 

1) It is important to compare the amount of government bailout funds provided to AIG and the amount of money paid out by AIG in executive bonuses.

2) It is important to remember that the government did authorize the bailout plan and still plans to continue printing billions of taxpayer dollars for the purpose of bailing out AIG.

3) It also should be noted that after receiving government bailout funds AIG has the right to utilize the funds in any legal manner they choose and, in this instance, the company is not being held accountable for violating any usage stipulations within the bailout plan but is only being chastised by those in disagreement with how they used the funds.

AIG only used a tiny fraction of the bailout dollars to payout executive bonuses. Look at the numbers: the government provided AIG $170 billion dollars and AIG used a mere $165 million dollars of it to payout bonuses and purportedly dodge contractual violations. After comparing the two figures to calculate the percentage of bailout money used, it’s clear that AIG only used 0.097 percent of the government bailout money to pay the bonuses. That means that 99.903 percent of the government bailout money provided to AIG is not being given widespread public scrutiny. That percentage translates to more than $16.9 billion dollars. The vast majority of taxpayer’s bailout funds to AIG are not even part of the present dialogue. Instead media coverage and attention is being dedicated to 0.097 percent of the bailout money, ignoring the bigger elephant in the room.

Despite AIG’s public scolding by President Obama and other government officials the government still plans to provide an additional $30 billion dollars in bailouts to the company. This will increase the total government bailouts for AIG to roughly $200 billion dollars. Administration officials are pushing for more stringent provisions in the use of the next $30 billion dollars in bailout money provided – a move that would be favorable to taxpayers and politicians concerned with the company’s financial decisions. But unless those provisions make expenditures such as bonuses a violation of the bailout’s stipulations, the company cannot be legally accountable for any wrongdoing in future instances of bonus payouts. Without violation of any law, AIG only has to contend with public sentiments, agreements and disagreements, none of which can hold AIG legally accountable without violation of any law. Legally speaking, AIG did nothing wrong.

In addition to not discussing the remaining 99.903 percent, the government was already privy to AIG’s plan to payout bonuses months in advance. For that reason, the government’s apparent outrage seems to be a sham. Their scrutiny is for the sake of appearing vigilant of corporate use of taxpayer dollars – a move that will help taxpayers feel that their money is under the watchful eye of the administration. The government is being very opportunistic in scrutinizing the mere 0.097 percent of the bailouts funds. 

AIG can use government bailout funds in any legal way it deems useful. If it has not violated any law, how they use the funds may be analyzed at best and chastised at worse. The public can disagree but mere opinions from non-decision making personnel are not credible for conducting business operations. So although AIG chairman and CEO Edward Liddy decided to ask AIG executives to give back their bonuses, there was no legal reason for doing so. The move is a public relations strategy more than anything else. The government still plans to deliver the company $30 billion dollars more. The government, now owning roughly 80 percent of the company, is doubtful to publicly disseminate how AIG spends the soon-to-be $200 billion in bailout dollars. Their present outrage is opportunistic and substantive vigilance in the future will remain questionable. After all, their scrutiny has ignored the majority of taxpayer dollars provided to the company.

———————————————-

The Presidential Inauguration, what a momentous occasion! President elect Barack Obama will be granted his official status as president this coming Tuesday, January 20th, in Washington, D.C. The place will be packed with over one million additional people to celebrate the event with three days of festivities. So, put up your shot glasses of sparkling cider and shake it on inauguration day!

And while everyone is enjoying themselves – drinking, dancing the nights away, and growing numb to the worlds’ troubles during festivities – there are many that will not be celebrating. They won’t be taking shots of sparkling cider, dancing and attending parties in their finest garments. Instead, they will be in places of high conflict and war. Places where the front and backyard are battle grounds and entire neighborhoods are livened with the cacophony of shells and artillery. Places where the ostentation of a citywide party isn’t on the agenda, and where “taking shots” has an entirely different ring to it. One of those places is in the Gaza region of the Middle East.

Since January 3rd, the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Hamas has placed the country of Palestine into a humanitarian crisis. In efforts to combat Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has launched all out attacks on Palestinian territory. Shockingly, forty percent of the people they’ve killed have been civilians and thirty-three percent of those killed have been children (as of 14, January).

The United Nations 15 member council has collaborated to agree on a resolution to help put an end to the madness. Of them, only one member decided not to agree on a resolution – the United States. Instead, the USA is choosing to perpetuate old habits and support Israel’s efforts.

Riding on the platform of “change”, President elect Barack Obama and selected Secretary of State Hilary Clinton plan to maintain the tradition of support for Israel. But in the Gaza region, many recognize that the change will not be for them. Instead, things will remain the same as they deal with the struggles of violent conflict where thirty three percent of the targets are children. They will deal with the onslaught of shelling and aerial strikes from the IDF. They know that there will be no change for them because the Obama campaign will perpetuate old habits and take the same position as always, even as Palestinian death tolls accumulate and the humanitarian crises worsen. In response, the United States hasn’t lifted a pen to authorize anything that will cease Israel’s present actions. It also has not followed suit with the UN Security Council member nations in agreeing toward a resolution, thus become the only one of the fifteen member nations not to do so. Furthermore, it has not even verbally condemned the actions of the IDF or taken any stance against it as countries Bolivia and Venezuela have done.

So while everyone is partying the night away embracing the incoming change proposed by the Obama campaign, there are many that will not be as festive. And when everyone sobers up from the euphoria of celebrating, they will realize nothing’s changed for them either.