President Obama instructed Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner today to attempt to extract the bonuses from AIG executives who sank this pivotal firm, requiring the United States of America to prop it up to prevent cataclysmic damage to the financial system of the globe.
This is hardly overreach. Roosevelt, when confronted with a Supreme Court that struck down the National Recovery Administration, proposed to "pack" the court by increasing its membership so that he could gain a majority. He lost, but he didn't stand idly by while the economic royalists tried to skim the cream and leave us all at the mercy of Miss Market.
Isn't this why we have lawyers? You have a dispute? Let's have it out in front of a judge and a jury. Surely a reasonably competent litigator could thwart these credit default swap creators.
Larry Summers was pitiful on the Sunday talk shows. Nation of laws and contracts and all that. OK, take it to court, old sport, and we'll see who's right. Man up.
Couldn't Geithner have seen this coming when he caved to AIG's "contractual obligation" argument? Prediction: Mr. Geithner, as able as he may be, will be gone before the year is out if he doesn't get the dough back.
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