The politicians are finally paying attention to the furor caused by the huge bonuses being paid to the CEOs, some employees and management of the large financial companies receiving the bailout money. As information develops it gives the public an insight to the corruption and sugar deals by the money grabbers.

Watching the debate by the congressmen who argued about punishing the recipients of the bonuses was amusing. It seemed to be Democrats who pushed the bill that would tax these bonuses at ninety percent to get the money back into the treasury. They were in a great hurry to do it immediately.

Great punishment! If the executive got a million dollars bonus, he still gets to keep a hundred grand. Most citizens should agree with the Republicans who argued that they should get absolutely no money at all. They also argued that the bill could be unconstitutional because it singled out a small, and somewhat unique, portion of the population to be treated in this way.

Who could be next? Highly paid athletes, entertainers or even lawyers who get a huge windfall in a lawsuit settlement? Well, we guess that those occupations would be exempt. However it was amusing to watch the debates as Charles Rangel and his Democratic cronies argued and pleaded to pass the bill right now.

Republicans countered that the bill for the bailout was more than a thousand pages long and they didn’t have time to read it, so they were required to vote on a bill they didn’t truly or fully understand. Then came the big question of why Senator Chris Dodd inserted a provision in the bill that allowed the bonuses to be paid. The Democrats ignored the commentary and continued to press for immediate passage.

It would seem that the Democrats believed that a person who really screwed up the system, and caused the house of cards to crumble, could get a bonus for the incompetence, or possibly unethical dealings. That is, as long as the government gets the lion’s share of the money back.

Most people who work for a living believe that a bonus is a reward for superior performance that increases profits and not for making decisions that ultimately drive the business into bankruptcy. Oops! It isn’t bankruptcy if the government (taxpayers) covers the losses.

This is a perfect scenario of how politicians show the public what they do best. When things go bad, they find an excuse, or better yet, find someone else to blame. Then there was the thrust and parry between Democratic and Republican congressmen as they argued their positions.

It would appear that the Republicans in the debate did not vote for the original bailout and were against the selective tax. In the final house vote on the taxing bill, several Republicans voted with the Democrats. Probably a reflection on whether or not they were in a safe district.

Another interesting factor that should be noted is to observe the voting patterns. Watch those members in the Congress and Senate who received campaign contributions from AIG and other beneficiaries of the bailout money. At the top of the AIG list is Senator Dodd (who also benefited from preferential treatment from other companies receiving the billions of dollars) followed by President Obama and Senator Charles Schumer. Guess how the senators voted on the bill. Senator McCain also received a huge campaign contribution.

If the recipients of the bonuses must return the money, or at least be heavily taxed, shouldn’t the politicians who received large campaign contributions be required to return all their campaign funds from those bailed out companies to the treasury? We think they should, but we are realistic enough to believe that “It ain’t gonna happen.”

Politicians belong to one of the most self-serving entities in any country, and in history. Americans are getting a much better look at how the system works and how it is abused. Education is expensive and this is outrageous tuition for a course in government for the taxpayer to pay.

Guess what? President Obama and the Dems will take our deficits to historic levels. Better put, dangerous levels. Here are some scary numbers from the Wall Street Journal and it’s not Halloween:

“This year’s deficit will hit 13.1% of GDP and next year’s will still be at 9.6%, assuming a healthy recovery, and then never get below 4.1% for the entire decade.”

Just for comparison: It never got over 4% under Bush! (Check it out: Greg Mankiw is a professor of economics at Harvard University. His new post analyzes the federal budget deficits: Budget Deficit as a Percent of GDP )

What about the national debt? Again, it’s scary and I’m not talking about a movie:

“The share of debt held by the public will double — to 82.4% in 2019 from 40.8% in 2008.”

So what about all of you who voted for change? You voted for deficits! Scary deficits!

What about the “we inherited a deficit” story? Since assuming the presidency, Pres BO has added $800 billion, or the stimulus that no one read. (It included the AIG bonuses.)

This is looking more and more like BO’s scary movie! I just hope that southern Democrats, in the House and Senate, stop it before it’s too late!

It is all about power and money. From the time history began to be recorded, the message was the same. It would seem that greed is inborn and is just expressed more in some people than others. With few exceptions, the biggest special interest is self-interest.

“What’s in it for me?” seems to be the top motivator for most of humanity.

At the top of the greed pyramid are the political kingpins. Whether it is a monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, or a democracy the primary incentive is to gain as much as one can. This also holds true in big business. How much is enough?

As the union leader Samuel Gompers replied when asked how much he wanted in the labor negotiations, he smiled and said: “More!” That is the battle cry we hear now when the banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers and others ask for bailout funding.

Now we hear that $18 billion of the bailout dollars are going for bonuses to be paid to CEOs and management of the companies receiving huge amounts of taxpayer’s dollars. The justification for the payment is because it was part of contracts made before the crash, and to keep the best and brightest within the companies.

Keep the best and the brightest? For most people, a bonus is extra compensation or a reward for excellence in performance and a job well done. It is difficult to believe that a bonus should be paid to people who made poor decisions that bankrupted the companies. The shareholders and taxpayers are going broke, but the culprits who caused the disasters continue to watch their millions expand at taxpayers’ expense.

If the best and the brightest deserve to be richly rewarded for failure, what sort of message does that send to the “average Joe” who will never get out of debt or has little hope that he will ever live in a country that has paid off the debt caused by these corrupt power brokers and equally corrupt politicians.

It is heartbreaking to watch a stock portfolio crash and what was supposed to be retirement security slowly disappear while finding out that the management of AIG and other financial companies are pocketing a huge windfall. It makes a mockery of the concept of fairness and justice. It is just the affirmation of the golden rule. “He who has the gold, makes the rules.”

Back to the argument that they had to pay the bonuses because it was in the contract of the managers and sales reps. It would take an idiot to write a contract to give bonuses based on failure. If the company loses money, it would seem the people who cause the failure should also lose, not gain, money. The practice is an insult to even an idiot, and the taxpayers should be screaming to the legislators to end giving any more money to those companies that paid the outrageous compensation.

The auto unions have the good sense to agree to reductions in compensation in order to keep the companies from going under. However, if you get a couple of million dollars in bonuses, you can live a few years without a job and still not suffer financially. There is no way that the practice can be justified. Money usually trumps fairness and cash is king.

Justification can be bought. It is amazing what campaign contributions can do to improve the financial positions of the donors. When one thinks of the cost of running a political campaign, the support of large donors is necessary. With the huge bonuses, the grateful recipients can well afford to be generous when the next election cycle comes. We not only get the government we deserve, we get the best-compensated politicians.

… he said that the economy was sound!

All of us remember Sen McCain (or Pres Bush) saying that the US economy was sound. We know what they meant by that. Bush and McCain were defending the US economy against the steady “doom and gloom” coming out of the Obama team! They were trying to say that the US economy, and its companies and workers, are still the best in the world.

Do you remember what the Obama people said? Let’s compare the Obama campaign with the Obama incumbency:

During the fall campaign, Obama mercilessly mocked his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, for declaring, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Obama’s team painted the veteran senator as out of touch and failing to grasp the challenges facing the country.

On Sunday, economic adviser Christina Romer was asked during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if the fundamentals of the economy were sound.

“Of course they are sound,” she replied.

Wonder if anyone in the media will ask Pres BO for a little explanation?

What is anything worth? The simple answer is that nothing is worth more than someone is willing or able to pay for it. That seems to be the crux of the financial crisis we face now. For a long period of time, people were willing and many were able to feed a runaway real estate market. There were also opportunists and speculators in the financial markets that caused inflated prices in stock. Let’s make a comparison of values in property, stock and diamonds…

Let’s say a person had a couple of hundred thousand dollars to invest and bought a house for $100,000 and the same amount in diamonds. Three years later, the house could be sold for $200,000 and the diamonds appreciated by fifty grand. Good increase in the investment for both. He also bought another $100,000 in what he considered to be safe stock, like the companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Two years ago all his investments were doing well. His house could sell on the market for $300,000, and his diamonds and stock were both doing well and almost doubled in value. Then, in 2008 the crash occurred. And nothing was worth what he thought it would be.

The big problem was that he had no buyers for any of his holdings. At least, none who would pay what he had invested in each. Perhaps, he could break even on his house, but in several markets, real estate values are less than what people paid for their homes.

Here is the situation. The increase in the value of his stocks was strictly on paper. Since he didn’t sell when there were willing buyers, he would have to take a loss on what he expected. The paper, or stock certificates could be worthless if the company went out of business. His 401K failed to be available to provide him with retirement income.

Nobody is willing to buy his diamonds, so they are just taking up space in his safety deposit box. He doesn’t know if they will ever have value again. A diamond is beautiful and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps he can gain some comfort in looking at them occasionally, but he is not optimistic about even breaking even on the investment.

Now, he looks at the value of his house. It is still a beautiful home and he enjoys living there, but what someone is willing to pay for a house in this market is far lower than the $300,000 value it had two years ago. The major consolation is that he and his family still have a roof over their heads. The big downside, is that he still has a mortgage, and the increase in taxes (due to the assessor agreeing two years ago that the house was worth $300,000) is killing him. Perhaps he had to take a pay cut just to keep his job.

The fact that the house has personal value as a residence is fine, and he can still afford the mortgage payment, but the ungodly jump in taxes is a burden he finds to be on the border of affordability. Other living expenses must be cut to meet the demands. In this case, what he thought would be an asset in his retirement plans, becomes a liability.

Perhaps he took out a home equity loan to make improvements on the house and even with the money he invested, he still can’t find a buyer willing to meet his price. He might lose his job, and be unable to meet his monthly obligations. This could cause a foreclosure and the loss of all he has invested in the property. Is there someone to blame?

When he bought his house, diamonds and stocks, he could afford them. He planned ahead for a comfortable retirement and now that dream is not becoming a reality. The greed of those in the financial industry, mismanagement of companies, plus a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of government incompetence created a huge financial crisis. Those at the top of the financial food chain will be inconvenienced a bit, but few will receive punishment befitting their crimes or involvement.

America has become a nation of sheep who are stupidly accustomed to letting others control their lives and future. Ronald Reagan had it right when he said: “Government doesn’t solve the problems. Government IS the problem.”

When will Americans wake up and realize this is where we have to make the biggest changes? We have to change government to get back to the basics of democracy and representation rather than having politicians in office who believe their function is to rule. We get the government we deserve. It is time to wake up and demand better.