Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) takes this week’s award in chutzpah. Mr. Frank criticizes AIG’s bonus package stating, “these bonuses are going to people who screwed this thing up enormously.” Mr. Frank thereafter advocates firing the executives responsible. A few thoughts from ‘Puter.
As an initial matter, Mr. Frank is correct. AIG shouldn’t be paying any bonuses, most especially to those who aided in the cratering of AIG. But, even a blind squirrel like Mr. Frank finds a nut now and again.
Delving a little more deeply, Mr. Frank is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. You know, the committee responsible for regulating financial services, just like it says in the name. As its own website says, “[t]he Committee oversees all components of the nation’s housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities.” Also, all spending bills, including the Giant Technicolor Stimulus Package (Part I (and forthcoming Part II)) as well as TARP (where the AIG bailout billions came from originally), must originate in the House of Representatives. U.S. Const., Art. I, sec. 7.
Mr. Frank also was one of the staunchest defenders of
failed Democrat operative dumping grounds Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Frank continued to defend Fannie and Freddie long after it was apparent that they were one of the primary causes of the housing bubble and subprime mortgages. Don’t take ‘Puter’s word for it. Believe Jeff Jacoby writing in
The Boston Globe. And pay no attention to the fact that all the while Mr. Frank was talking up Fannie and Freddie, his
partner was working for Fannie.
So let’s see. According to Mr. Frank, this is all AIG’s fault, and there was no possible way for poor, pitiful, powerless Mr. Frank to do anything about those mean capitalist pigs at AIG showering themselves with hard-earned taxpayer money.
Like adequately regulating the insurance, banking and housing industries, which is his primary job as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, for instance.
Or by insuring oversight on spending of the TARP funds, which is part of his job as a member of the House.
Or maybe recusing himself from legislating on Fannie Mae while his lover worked there, which is the only ethical course.
‘Puter does agree with Mr. Frank’s assertion that those responsible for this miscarriage should be fired. Starting with Mr. Frank.
** In the picture above, Rep. Frank is the one on the left having a good laugh with Speaker Pelosi over screwing the American people once again.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.
Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) takes this week’s award in chutzpah. Mr. Frank criticizes AIG’s bonus package stating, “these bonuses are going to people who screwed this thing up enormously.” Mr. Frank thereafter advocates firing the executives responsible. A few thoughts from ‘Puter.