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The TARP Volley

Congress votes to spend ,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars) in taxpayer money on the bailout plan.  AIG gets a hefty chunk of that  – 0,000,000,000, or about ,600 per U.S. household.  AIG pays out 5,000,000 in bonuses (~.46 per household) to executives.  The media fails to put the proper context on this and creates a political sh*tstorm that has our nation and congress all atwitter.  Congress votes to tax the bonuses at 90%, thereby  recouping 9,000,000 (.31 per household, or roughly the cost of three postage stamps).

Thus, after all the furor, outrage, and an act of congress remarkable more for it’s speed than wisdom, we have managed to shuffle exactly .0015% of the bailout funding through the hands of congress, an incompetent financial institution, the executives of that institution, and back again to congress.  And, of course, as likely as not, we will go through the same thing all over again, gradually allowing congress, the IRS, and various corporate miscreants to whittle away at  these funds until all that remains are the millions of outraged blog posts, like this one.

It’s like watching monkeys play catch with snowballs.

Broofa

3 responses to “The TARP Volley”

  1. Robert,
    I can’t tell who you are most upset with, the media, congress or aig. Is this a troll to start a conversation about the situations we have no control over or is this just venting.

    There should be no suprise as to the goings on in our society. The names have changed but the incompetence remains the same. There will be no change until the revolution.

    On a much lighter note, Mark Cavendish just won his first attempt at Milan-SanRemo. Yippee.
    Gordon

  2. It’s just venting at the silliness going on. It’s annoying to see people expending so much energy and emotion in such ineffectual ways. If I had to point the finger at one entity in particular, I guess it would be those people in the media that sensationalize the news rather than report it. By pandering to the emotions of the public, they make it harder, not easier, for us to have a real, effective discussion about the problems at hand and how best to go about solving them.

    That’s really what prompted this post, btw. The fact that the media was so up in arms about how such a minuscule %’age of these bailout funds were being spent. (Not that I support the AIG bonuses – that’s pretty silly as well – but fixating on them in the way we have isn’t going to solve anything.)