bail out

Obama to Limit TARP Executive Pay to $500,000

Update: Cloak and Dagger alert! Executive pay limits can be waived!:

Those same rules, however, would be voluntary for most recipients of government aid. Companies could waive the restrictions by informing shareholders.

Get that? Voluntary, just inform shareholders you are handing over huge wads of cash to people who ran your company into the ground to the point you need taxpayer money...wala, not a problem.

This is a shocker. Obama to Limit Executive Pay at Companies Getting Aid.

About time!

President Barack Obama will announce today that he’s imposing a cap of $500,000 on the compensation of top executives at companies that receive significant federal assistance in the future, responding to a public outcry over Wall Street excess.

AP Investigation: Bail Out Banks sought foreign workers instead of U.S. workers!

This is a bombshell. Banks, while receiving billions in TARP bail out money and firing U.S. workers right and left sought foreign workers. The associated press did an investigation on where your taxpayer money is going and this is what they found!

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.

Best Rant of the Week! Senator Claire McCaskill - "These people are Idiots!" (video)

Now this is the Senator I remember, Claire McCaskill Speaks Truth!

CNN:

We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses.

 

WSJ Reporting Government Officials Talking $1-$2 trillion MORE in TARP funds

As expected and predicted by Roubini, even people on this blog, the Wall Street Journal is reporting this little gem:

U.S. government officials seeking to revamp the financial bailout have discussed spending another $1 trillion to $2 trillion to help restore banks to health, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

House Votes Against TARP Bail Out - while vote is meaningless, message is not

The House of Representatives today voted against releasing the second part of the $700 billion TARP funds to the Obama administration.

The House by 270-155 passed the resolution, but the measure has virtually no chance of becoming law. The Senate last week rejected a similar resolution, thus allowing the Obama administration to tap the remaining $350 billion in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) created last fall.

The House also put conditions on the TARP:

GM Using Bail Out Money to Invest in Brazil?

Update: The quoted paper is the Latin American Herald Tribune. But there is a comment left by a supposed GM representative here which I highlight:

GM is NOT using U.S. Government Loans to Invest in Brazil

Re: Robert Oak's post on 1/19/09, "GM using Bail Out Money to Invest in Brazil"...The claims that General Motors is planning to invest $1 billion of U.S. federal aid money in its Brazilian operations is unequivocally wrong and without any basis in fact. No monies from a U.S. government loan would be allocated to investments in Brazil. In the case of Brazil, GM has $1 billion in investments that have been announced over the last two years. These investments are fully financed by GM's Brazilian operations through local sources. GM's operations in Brazil are fully self-funded.

Laura Toole
GM Latin America, Africa, Middle East Communications

TARP Bank Recipients Have Offshore Tax Havens

The GAO released a new report, International Taxation: Large U.S. Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions recently (see bottom right hand corner).

International Taxation: Large U.S. Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions, December 18, 2008

The Washington Post went further to see which of the TARP recipients also have offshore tax havens:

American International Group, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are among the companies that are getting bailed out by U.S. taxpayers while having subsidiaries in locations where they can avoid paying U.S. taxes

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