{"id":488,"date":"2009-03-18T22:41:40","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T02:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=488"},"modified":"2009-03-18T22:43:12","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T02:43:12","slug":"what-about-the-other-169835000000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/what-about-the-other-169835000000\/","title":{"rendered":"What About the Other $169,835,000,000?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been getting more and more annoyed as the AIG bonus scandal has cranked up into a hysterical tornado of indignant politicians performing before the similarly self-indulgent press corp. \u00c2\u00a0Let&#8217;s take a step back and look at what&#8217;s happened so far.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The government has handed over $170 billion to AIG. \u00c2\u00a0That&#8217;s $170,000,000,000.<\/li>\n<li>Less than .1% of that amount was used to pay bonuses to people who didn&#8217;t really deserve it. \u00c2\u00a0That&#8217;s $165,000,000. \u00c2\u00a0(notice how that number has three fewer zeroes than the previous bullet point).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>How much ink has been spilled, how much hot air has been puffed, how many chests have been beaten, how many cries of outrage have been raised over this .1%? \u00c2\u00a0Don&#8217;t they feel even a little bit silly as they perform for the cameras (or point the cameras)?<\/p>\n<p>I think that the powers-that-be are terrified of being lynched by a hysterical mob, so they&#8217;re joining the mob and abdicating their moral authority to the mob. \u00c2\u00a0President Obama is not immune &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/03\/19\/business\/economy\/19geithner.html?hp\">he lit his torch<\/a> and jumped into the mob yesterday, saying that he\u00c2\u00a0directed Mr. Geithner to find a legal way \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>And what about our own Representative Barney Frank &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2009\/POLITICS\/03\/18\/frank.qanda\/index.html#cnnSTCText\">he thinks<\/a> \u00c2\u00a0&#8220;the federal government has to take the lead on the lawsuits. &#8221; \u00c2\u00a0Lawsuits? \u00c2\u00a0Really? \u00c2\u00a0How big are the bonuses you&#8217;re going to sue for? \u00c2\u00a0Are you going after some of the $100,000 bonuses &#8211; the ones paid for with the\u00c2\u00a0$170,000,000,000?<\/p>\n<p>I wish that the government and the press cared about the big picture. \u00c2\u00a0I wish they were tracking the\u00c2\u00a0$170,000,000,000. \u00c2\u00a0Unfortunately, we&#8217;re not going to get it. \u00c2\u00a0We&#8217;re going to get days of hot air and breathless reports as a few pennies come trickling back to the government. \u00c2\u00a0 The remaining 99.9% of the budget is going to sail off into the night, unnoticed and unmonitored.<\/p>\n<p>Call your rep. \u00c2\u00a0Call your senator. \u00c2\u00a0Call the President. \u00c2\u00a0Write your favorite newspaper and email your favorite blogger. \u00c2\u00a0Ask them:\u00c2\u00a0What about the other $169,835,000,000?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been getting more and more annoyed as the AIG bonus scandal has cranked up into a hysterical tornado of indignant politicians performing before the similarly self-indulgent press corp. \u00c2\u00a0Let&#8217;s take a step back and look at what&#8217;s happened so far. The government has handed over $170 billion to AIG. \u00c2\u00a0That&#8217;s $170,000,000,000. Less than .1% [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":490,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}