Yeetle Box - AIG Predicts Huge Loss

Talking tougher by the hour, livid Democrats confronted beleaguered insurance giant AIG with an ultimatum Tuesday: Give back $165 million in post-bailout bonuses or watch Congress tax it away with emergency legislation.

So there!

Republicans, who have very little to add to this discussion, declared the Democrats were hardly blameless, accusing them of standing by while the bonus deal was cemented and suggesting that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could and should have done more. Republicans also stood by for six years as this behemoth of an insurance company raped the insurance industry.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo reported that 73 separate company employees received bonus checks of $1 million or more last Friday. This at a company that was failing so spectacularly the government felt the need to prop it up with a $170 billion bailout. Cuomo said, "Can you believe that a company whose sole goal is to make a lot of money took a lot of money when it was given? Unbelievable!"

The financial bailout program remains politically unpopular even though the plan began under his predecessor, George W. Bush - who is nowhere to be found. The White House is well aware of the nation's bailout fatigue — anger that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have gone to prop up financial institutions that made poor decisions, while many others who have done no wrong have paid the price - except George W. Bush who is rumored to be writing his memoirs, tentatively titled, "You Just Don't Get It."

AIG chief executive Edward Liddy, no relative to G. Gordon Libby or Watergate fame, can expect a verbal pummeling Wednesday when he testifies before a House subcommittee and maybe even some sour rhetorical questions for which he has no answer.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, suggested that if the AIG executives had any integrity, they would return the $165 million in bonus money. One leading Republican even suggested they might honorably kill themselves, then said he didn't really mean it, but Rush Limbaugh made him say it.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., lisped that the government, through the bailout, is now an 80 percent owner of the company and suggested that was grounds to sue to recover the bonuses.

However, the ever astute Republicans said President Obama and his administration should have leaned harder on AIG executives to reject the extra pay, raising some speculation over Geithner's future.

"I don't know if he should resign over this," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. "He works for the president of the United States. But I can tell you, this is just another example of where he seems to be out of the loop. Treasury should have let the American people know about this. Not last year's this. This year's this."

At least three Democratic bills and one Republican measure were introduced to crack down on the Treasury Department and stiffen rules for recipients of bailout funds. Two bills in the House aimed to impose a 100 percent tax on the bonuses.

The YeetleMaster