1306 True News 26: AIG, Madoff and Thrown Shoes
The people who point out the predators are almost always the predators.
March 19, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
09:23
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| Hi, everybody. It's Stefan Mollinger from Free Domain Radio. | |
| I hope that you're doing very well. | |
| This is just a few bits of random media lunacy to discuss today, and I hope that this is of some use to you. | |
| The first, of course, is you've doubtless heard, if you've been anywhere near the squawk boxes of brain-dead pundits, the outrage, yes, the massive outrage, pitchfork-waving, flame-torch-shrek-hunting of the AIG executives who are getting $160 million in bonuses and Barack Obama's stern commandment to pursue, | |
| you see, every legal opportunity to ban these bonuses because of the outrage of the American taxpayers and the pillaging Of the public purse, because, you see, the government is so concerned about pillaging the taxpayers that it will put them on the hook for trillions and trillions of dollars for a war and a bailout without any real consultation, despite the fact that everyone was against the bailout. | |
| The bailout continued, so pardon me for being a little skeptical about Obama's concern for the wealth of the taxpayers. | |
| But, of course, nobody's talking about anything reasonable here. | |
| And, of course, Barack Obama was very good at lecturing sternly us About how to be more mature and reasonable and not rush to judgment about things like race and so on. | |
| But then when it comes to hunting down insurance executives and cancelling contracts, he's very keen on leading the pitchfork and jumping on that bandwagon. | |
| Of course, the reality is that 0.01% of the bailout money that was given, the reality is that these bonuses were put into effect contractually Over a year ago, or about a year ago as far as I understand it. | |
| And, of course, the reality is that when these bonuses were put into place, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the government accounting office, the economists who work for the government, the government as a whole, | |
| were all telling investors and managers that there was no bubble, that everything was great, that the fundamentals were sound, and that all the money that they were making was not A preying upon the poor and middle class who get the money later, | |
| but because there had been a massive expansion in the printing of money and an artificial boom created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the housing market, they weren't saying, well, all the money that you're getting in profits is illusory based on inflation and the force herding of inflated money into the housing market. | |
| No, no, no. It's real, it's genuine, it's based on fundamentals, it's sound, profits, it's healthy, it's good, it's right. | |
| And so, about a year ago, when the government was telling everyone how sound the economy was and how the fundamentals were great and there were no worries and no problems, No recession or depression anywhere in sight, and everything was great, which was occurring up until October of last year. | |
| So a year ago, on being told by the government that everything was hunky-dory, these people assigned bonuses to attract and keep those who were making profits for their company. | |
| Not an unprecedented move, of course. | |
| And then, of course, after the bailout money went, Part of the money was to go and to pay prior obligations. | |
| They have obligations to pay their rent based on leases. | |
| They have obligations for their office equipment. | |
| They have obligations to their employees to pay bonuses that were contracted upon when the government was telling them that everything was great. | |
| And employees do quite well during any time of liquidation crisis within a company. | |
| They are pretty high in the list of people who are paid. | |
| And so AIG is honoring its contracts that were made at a time when the government was saying that everything was fine. | |
| And of course, if they made these contracts, which were into the future, for which people stayed in order to collect them, if they were to abrogate these contracts, that would be pretty disastrous. | |
| And, of course, would maybe slake the thirst of the bloodthirsty mob for the moment, but all it would mean is that they would not be able to retain any decent people into the future, because people would recognize that it's kind of tough to take the commitments of a company seriously when the government can step in and break contracts at will. | |
| Of course, can you imagine a company that is honoring Obligations that were paid into the future based upon the assurances of the present. | |
| This, of course, is exactly how the government operates in terms of its unfunded future liabilities, now running into the hundreds of trillions of dollars, if the mathematics can be believed. | |
| So, this is all just a bunch of hysterical populist nonsense and shows just what a shallow fool Barack Obama is, like every other politician. | |
| And, of course, I perfectly predicted this in the past. | |
| It doesn't mean that I'm a genius. | |
| It just means that I'm using some eyeballs. | |
| The second, of course, is to touch upon Bertie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. | |
| Of course, a Ponzi scheme is where you pay current investors, not for many profits from investment, but with the money that is collected from new investors. | |
| Where on earth could he get the idea for such a crazy scheme? | |
| Well, of course, all he had to do was look at Social Security. | |
| You see, when the government does it, it's the virtuous protection of the elderly from poverty, but when Bernie Madoff does it, he gets 150 years or whatever it is in jail. | |
| This, of course, is standard for the government. | |
| When we do it, it's a virtue. When you do it, it is a vice. | |
| So, that, of course, is the basis of the Social Security system of the old age pensions. | |
| It's simply the predation of the young, right? | |
| That there's no money In your name in the social security system at all, there is only an IOU that your kids and grandkids are going to have to pay whether they like it or not, or at least that's the theory. | |
| And so there's no money. It is simply a transfer from a poorer generation, from the poor to the richest generation in history, which is the elderly now who grew up in the post-war boom with very low taxes, low capital gains taxes, and... | |
| Now are enjoying all the fruits of that wealth and are now being paid for by the young who have to get post-secondary education because they've become so common and who graduate with very large debts and who have much fewer opportunities and much higher taxation and much greater liabilities. | |
| It is a shuffle of money from the young poor to the rich old. | |
| It is a tragedy, but for them to prosecute Bernie Madoff is, of course, ridiculous. | |
| The shoe thrower in Iraq has been sentenced to three years in prison for throwing a shoe and missing President Bush during a recent visit that President Bush had to Iraq. | |
| Now, these are different legal systems, I understand that, but let us look at the question of justice here. | |
| If you start a war that results in a death of over a million people, Now, people have quibbled on my use of the word genocide, and I understand that it was not a purposeful genocide like the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide, but when you make a decision that you know is going to result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and you make that decision anyway, the consequences are genocidal. | |
| Although the purpose may not be to kill those people, it is inevitable that it will occur when you make that decision. | |
| So, I agree with you, and I'm sorry that I used the term in a way that wasn't clear. | |
| I hope this is a little more clear now. So, if you start a war, That results in the death of a million people and a multi-trillion dollar debt to be piled upon future generations. | |
| You are honored for your dedication and service to the country by Barack Obama and you are given a pension and you're allowed to go and write your memoirs and make a fortune and you get a presidential library and so on. | |
| That is the reward for making decisions that result in the deaths of millions and a debt of trillions, the deaths of over a million people. | |
| But if you throw a shoe at a guy, you get three years. | |
| If you throw a shoe at the guy who caused a million deaths, you get three years. | |
| If you're the guy who caused a million deaths, you get praise, a hug, virtually a reach-around, and you get a pension. | |
| You get well rewarded. | |
| You see, for Barack Obama, it's important to pursue every conceivable legal means to punish the AIG workers who are relying on government assurances of the soundness of the economy and the validity of their own profits. | |
| It is important to use every conceivable legal means to pursue these people and to tax or claw back their profits. | |
| On the other hand, though, it's important to shake the hands of a mass murderer like George Bush and praise him for his service to his country, because we wouldn't want to pursue every conceivable legal means of prosecuting George Bush for the war crime of the international war crime of aggression against a nation that had done nothing to threaten the U.S., as well as the resulting, you know, slaughters, tortures, and rapes, and forced expulsions, and social collapse, and And so on, right? | |
| So this is the ridiculous nature of the moral world that we live in. | |
| It's a topsy-turvy, crazy-ass universe where throwing a shoe at a guy gets you put in prison, but causing the deaths of over a million people gets you a handshake, a hug, and a pension. | |
| This is what we need to iron out, to say the least. | |
| Thank you so much for watching freedomainradio.com. | |
| I look forward to your donations. |
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