Is the Republican party trying to kill itself???

[Seenterman]

If it's Citi's money being spent, then you have no right to criticize.  And I know this'll blow your mind, but now that the bailout money has been signed over to Citi, all that money belongs to them, too, and can be used however they please.  Unless there were any specific provisions in the deal restricting what Citi was to do with the money, they can use it however they like.

Don't like it?  Tough cookies.  Our right to control that money ended when we inked the deal with Citi.

Regardless, it's all a giant red herring.  That $10 mil is a proverbial drop in the bucket.  Citi has about $2 trillion in assets.  That new office amounts to 0.0005% of what Citi holds.  Citi could renovate dozens of offices that way without changing their situation materially. 

I can't understand why people hold opinions like this. First off it's not Citi's money, ITS OURS. We gave it to them to rescue their company not for new rugs, and paintings. If I go to the bank and ask for a loan to open a buisness and then spend that money on new crap for my house isn't that fraud!? From my understanding Republicans hated the stimulus bill but sort of got brow beaten into signing it much like the PATRIOT Act, sign it or you unamerican well this time the line was sign it or you hate America and want to watch it go bankrupt. I cannot belive we actually gave billions of dollars to companies that epically failed with almost no over sight! The stimulus bill was riddled with holes and now that the American taxpayer found out, politicians are looking for everyway to cover their butts, which pisses me off that they didnt do this BEFORE the bill was signed but jezze they need to do something. I dont belive the retention bonuses where in the best interest of the Country, maybe the best intrest for the company (AIG) but not for the country. So let me get this strait in terms of analogy, I work for a day trading corporation, I make a bunch of bad trades and end up losing more than my entire companies worth, but dont worry here comes Mr. BigGov to dole out money to us because we are a critical part of the countries financial system. My boss comes to me and tells me I'll be fired in the next 6 months, but if I can make back some of the money I lost he will give me 1 Million of the BigGov money.

And everyone's alright with this?!? I think since the Gov basically owns AIG now, (which is basically communism. I guess you republicans were right about Obama wanting to turn us into a Communist state, but guess what he couldn't have done it without your blessing!) part of the bill should have included that the Gov has retained the ability to renegotiate these retention bonuses. To the average american it just looks like these Execs are looting a sinking ship that the taxpayers are trying to save. I wonder what your feelings are over the 50k hunting trip AIG execs took, They worked hard so they deserve a company vacation paid for by American taxpayers. EDIT: After some digging apparently they have wasted over 526k of tax payer money.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27201970/

Regarding $10mil as a "drop in the bucket" that is part of the irresponcible thinking that got us into that mess. Why dont you tell a homeless shelter, a charity, or a gov program that got its funding cut because of this bill that $10mil is nothing, im sure they would disagree with you. Or wait maybe the homeless people dont deserve it because they didnt earn it! The Citi bosses are rich so they deserve the best on the backs of Americans I guess. . .  :|

[makattak]

I can't understand why people hold opinions like this. First off it's not Citi's money, ITS OURS. We gave it to them to rescue their company not for new rugs, and paintings. If I go to the bank and ask for a loan to open a buisness and then spend that money on new crap for my house isn't that fraud!? From my understanding Republicans hated the stimulus bill but sort of got brow beaten into signing it much like the PATRIOT Act, sign it or you unamerican well this time the line was sign it or you hate America and want to watch it go bankrupt. I cannot belive we actually gave billions of dollars to companies that epically failed with almost no over sight! The stimulus bill was riddled with holes and now that the American taxpayer found out, politicians are looking for everyway to cover their butts, which pisses me off that they didnt do this BEFORE the bill was signed but jezze they need to do something. I dont belive the retention bonuses where in the best interest of the Country, maybe the best intrest for the company (AIG) but not for the country. So let me get this strait in terms of analogy, I work for a day trading corporation, I make a bunch of bad trades and end up losing more than my entire companies worth, but dont worry here comes Mr. BigGov to dole out money to us because we are a critical part of the countries financial system. My boss comes to me and tells me I'll be fired in the next 6 months, but if I can make back some of the money I lost he will give me 1 Million of the BigGov money.

And everyone's alright with this?!? I think since the Gov basically owns AIG now, (which is basically communism. I guess you republicans were right about Obama wanting to turn us into a Communist state, but guess what he couldn't have done it without your blessing!) part of the bill should have included that the Gov has retained the ability to renegotiate these retention bonuses. To the average american it just looks like these Execs are looting a sinking ship that the taxpayers are trying to save. I wonder what your feelings are over the 50k hunting trip AIG execs took, They worked hard so they deserve a company vacation paid for by American taxpayers. EDIT: After some digging apparently they have wasted over 526k of tax payer money.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27201970/

Regarding $10mil as a "drop in the bucket" that is part of the irresponcible thinking that got us into that mess. Why dont you tell a homeless shelter, a charity, or a gov program that got its funding cut because of this bill that $10mil is nothing, im sure they would disagree with you. Or wait maybe the homeless people dont deserve it because they didnt earn it! The Citi bosses are rich so they deserve the best on the backs of Americans I guess. . .  :|

Funny thing about the way mortgages work. If you CONTRACT with the bank for a mortgage, you are required to fulfill the obligations of that contract.

The bank doesn't get to come back later and say "Woops, we screwed up, you can't use this money for a house with a pool, we never thought you'd be that frivilous" if the contract didn't say it in the first place!

You don't like how AIG is spending the money? You should have done something about it before we handed it over "no questions asked".

After that point, we can't go back and break the contract.

Well, I guess we can because apparently we don't care about the rule of law anymore.

[Seenterman]

You don't like how AIG is spending the money? You should have done something about it before we handed it over "no questions asked".

After that point, we can't go back and break the contract.

Well, I guess we can because apparently we don't care about the rule of law anymore.

Since you failed the reading portion of this exercise, lets try again.

The stimulus bill was riddled with holes and now that the American taxpayer found out, politicians are looking for everyway to cover their butts, which pisses me off that they didnt do this BEFORE the bill was signed but jezze they need to do something.

Care to comment on anything esle?

[Jamisjockey]

Also, have you guys heard that Citibank is taking $10 million in bailout money to redo executive offices?

Today
Me  "Hey man I need to bum $100.  I might be able to pay you back.  I'm pretty broke right now."
You "Sure......"
Tomorrow
You "Hey, what did you spend that money on?"
Me "Well, $50 went towards paying bills.  The rest?  Beer and hookers...."

The idiots in office have only themselves to blame.  No strings attached, what on earth did they think they were going to do with the money?

[makattak]

Since you failed the reading portion of this exercise, lets try again.


Care to comment on anything esle?

Since you failed at your own expression:

I can't understand why people hold opinions like this. First off it's not Citi's money, ITS OURS. We gave it to them to rescue their company not for new rugs, and paintings. If I go to the bank and ask for a loan to open a buisness and then spend that money on new crap for my house isn't that fraud!?

Hate to tell you, it's not your money anymore since someone took it from you and gave it to Citi.

You may go on later to decry government but you started out yelling at someone who pointed out it was too late.

If you don't like that I criticized your first argument, maybe you shouldn't have made that one?

[Seenterman]

LoL So you wouldnt be able to support your first criticism after I responded so you move to something esle. Good for you for being able to defend your viewpoint.  :rolleyes:

Hate to tell you, it's not your money anymore since someone took it from you and gave it to Citi.

You may go on later to decry government but you started out yelling at someone who pointed out it was too late.

If you don't like that I criticized your first argument, maybe you shouldn't have made that one?

First off, Its not to late. Its to late when you have an defeatist attitude such as yours. I hope with added public pressure and outrage some politicians will wake up a realize they need to watchout for the people that elected them, and not allow more outragous bills such as this one to pass. If you think its too late then your just part of the problem, oh "Oh well the gov did it nothing we can do. . . ho hum"
When more people actually start writing letters to their congress critters maybe they wont sign off on these spend us into oblivion bills.

I dont mind criticism, but pointless drive by criticism without an argument is pointless. Especially when you criticise a point that I already addressed.

Makattack

You should have done something about it before we handed it over "no questions asked".

Seenterman in the post directly before that

I cannot belive we actually gave billions of dollars to companies that epically failed with almost no over sight! The stimulus bill was riddled with holes and now that the American taxpayer found out, politicians are looking for everyway to cover their butts, which pisses me off that they didnt do this BEFORE the bill was signed but jezze they need to do something.

Construct your criticism in a better fashion in a way you can argue and defend your point, and try reading the post before you criticize.

[makattak]

LoL So you wouldnt be able to support your first criticism after I responded so you move to something esle. Good for you for being able to defend your viewpoint.  :rolleyes:


First off, Its not to late. Its to late when you have an defeatist attitude such as yours. I hope with added public pressure and outrage some politicians will wake up a realize they need to watchout for the people that elected them, and not allow more outragous bills such as this one to pass. If you think its too late then your just part of the problem, oh "Oh well the gov did it nothing we can do. . . ho hum"
When more people actually start writing letters to their congress critters maybe they wont sign off on these spend us into oblivion bills.

I dont mind criticism, but pointless drive by criticism without an argument is pointless. Especially when you criticise a point that I already addressed.

Construct your criticism in a better fashion in a way you can argue and defend your point, and try reading the post before you criticize.

Seems to me you are still calling for the government to take punitive action against a company and/or individuals AFTER they gave them the bailout cash.

You want to change the rules of the game AFTER other people have started playing.

If this is not your position, please clarify. Otherwise, I do not see how your later argument that we need to prevent this in the future mitigates a call to penalize private individuals/companies because of government malfeasance.

[Gewehr98]

Well, this thread fails the civility test, big time...