Ken’s Take: Sure, the AIG FP execs are scum, but abrogation of contracts and retroactive confiscatory taxation can’t possibly be a good idea. Once the precedent is set, there’s no way to stop them from doing it to me or you … just because they don’t like us.
(OK, you run less risk because you’re probably more likeable than me.)
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Excerpted from Wsj,”Obama’s AIG Pani”, March 19, 2009
Congress looking to string up AIG bonus recipients and, more generally, bankers in whatever bunker they can be found.
Senators Grassley and Baucus want to double the current income tax on bonuses, to 70% from 35% …Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, wants to tax it all — at 100%.
This is all too much even for Rep. Charlie Rangel, the House’s chief tax writer, who says the tax code shouldn’t be deployed as a “political weapon.”
He’s right. AIG’s managers may be this week’s political target of choice, but the message to every banker in America, indeed every business and individual in America, is that you could be next.
At least we haven’t yet seen the resolution that was proposed in the English parliament, in 1720 in the aftermath of the South Sea bubble, that bankers be tied in sacks filled with snakes and tipped into the Thames.
But this fracas is still in its early days.
Full editorial:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742023932678335.html
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March 19, 2009 at 3:33 pm |
Prediction: Bill stalls in conference until furor subsides, then lawmakers either lower rate or let bill die in conference. This let’s the law makers claim a vote of taking action, but doesn’t bind them to a potentially untenable legal situation.
March 19, 2009 at 8:09 pm |
The bill passed the House already.
Any Democrat who voted against this is a hero; any Republican who voted for it should face a opponent in the next spring’s primary with significant financial and ground game support from the national party.