Allianced Intermingled Greed

While investigating the "Watergate" scandal, Woodward and Bernstein (Co-authors of "All the President's Men") were admonished to "Follow the money."

As history has shown us, that has turned out to be very sound advice. So, let's take a few minutes today and follow the banking bail-out money.

We know that some of that money went to pay bonuses for certain employees of the bail-out companies. In response, several high ranking government officials expressed their outrage that AIG, in particular, would dare use the bail-out money for these bonuses. Many people don't know these were bonuses that AIG was contractually obligated to pay.

The outrage came from all over Washington, including the Oval Office!

But the money continues, let's keep following:

What else has AIG done with their bailout money? What a surprise! They've donated it to certain politicians' campaigns! What do you know? They are not the only bailed-out bank to be doing this!

Bank of America (which received $15 billion in bail-out dollars) has donated $24,500 in contributions in the first two months of 2009 alone! The lucky recipients? Democrat Steny Hoyer and members of the House and Senate banking committees. Citigroup (Which was handed $25 billion of our tax dollars) has donated $29,620 and UBS (who didn't receive funds directly but was paid as an AIG "counterparty" to the tune of $5 billion) has offered $10,000 to political parties.

Excuse me? Where is the outrage? Our government has passed a bill taxing 90% of the AIG bonuses, are we taxing the post-bail-out campaign contributions to the same degree? Oh. We only tax when the money is going to someone else. I get it...

Is there more money to follow? You bet!

AIG has sent nearly $100 billion to other banks. Over half of that has been sent to foreign banks! AIG is using US Taxpayer money to bail-out the rest of the world! Included, but not limited to $36 billion given to French and German banks alone!

But wait, there's more! (JMO never just scratches the surface!)

CBS is reporting that the Obama Administration and members of Congress knew that the bonuses were going to be paid months before the checks were actually issued! Yet they did nothing to stop it! Why would they do that? Two answers:

First, they could then fake outrage and appear to be morally incensed that the tax payers money was going to pay these undeserved huge bonuses (in the hopes we'd ignore the tax dollars being given back to the politicians as campaign contributions). This is the same tactic that Obama used regarding Rev. Wright. Wait for the story to break, feign outrage, encourage him to continue speaking and distance yourself from the problem.

The second answer? They could get the money back into the pockets of the government by taxing said bonuses. If Washington stopped the bonuses from being paid, they wouldn't have 90% back in the treasury! They'd have 0% and AIG would still have all of that money!

An interesting side note to this whole debacle is that in 2008 the bailed-out banks gave an awful lot of money to the very politicians who spear-headed this bail-out process. Let's use just AIG as an example: (Remember, this is only the contributions of AIG. Imagine what these people have received on the whole from the bailed-out banks and auto makers!:

Here are the top twenty.
(D-IL) Barack Obama ....... $104,332
(D-CT) Chris Dodd .......... $103,900
(R-AZ) John McCain .......... $59,499
(D-NY) Hillary Clinton ........ $37,965
(D-MT) Max Baucus .......... $24,750
(R-MA) Mitt Romney ......... $20,850
(D-DE) Joseph R Biden Jr .... $19,975
(D-CT) John B Larson ........ $19,750
(R-NH) John E Sununu ....... $18,500
(R-NY) Rudolph W Giuliani .. $13,200
(D-PA) Paul E Kanjorski ...... $12,000
(D-IL) Dick Durbin ............ $11,000
(D-CO) Edwin G Perlmutter . $10,500
(D-NY) Charles B Rangel ...... $9,000
(D-NC) John Edwards ......... $7,850
(R-TN) Bob Corker ............ $7,400
(R-NJ) Chris Smith ............ $6,900
(D-MA) Richard E Neal ........ $6,500
(D-WV) Jay Rockefeller ....... $6,500
(D-RI) Jack Reed .............. $6,000

Totals:
Donations to Republicans:
Total number of donations: 17
Average per donation: $6,132
Total donation amount: $104,249

Donations to Democrats
Total number of donations: 18
Average per donation: $18,229
Total donation amount: $328,122

I want to know where the major media journalists are. They are usually so fast to break stories like this. Sounds to me like Chris Dodd is set up to be the fall guy for all of these people who took money, gave a ton of money, and are now continuing to receive money from these very people.

Fishy-fishy!

Because it has taken me so long to finish this post, there is something that I must comment on: Our President has publicly shamed America while in Europe. Anyone else incensed? Obama worships at the alter of the EU because it's headed down the socialist path. America doesn't.