The Associated Press found that banks that received bailout money paid their top 600 executives a total of $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other compensation in 2007. They're trying to play the class warfare card again, but the more interesting numbers would be what they pay their executives this year, after Congress put limits on executive pay as part of the TARP bill. In reality, the pay of the executives is only the business of the executives themselves and the shareholders of the companies. The bigger question is: what happened to our money?
At least it looks like there might be a fight in Congress over whether to release the last $350 billion of TARP money…or not.
Toyota expects to see its first loss in 70 years this year. Notice, however, that they're not running to any governments asking for a bailout, unlike the Detroit automakers, which still are not safe from going under, especially considering that the concessions by the union are not mandatory. Over the weekend, GM and Chrysler also received bailouts from Canada. Despite all of these bailouts, GM still closed a plant in Ohio. What good is a bailout if it's not going to save jobs? Wasn't that the purpose? Of course, we all know that they'll be back asking for much more money.
In a down economy, the thing most needed is entrepreneurship and innovation. Unfortunately, Congress is killing the entrepreneurial spirit through egregious regulations. Instead, they're building a long bailout line, with developers and telephone and cable companies asking for bailouts now.
It's finally gotten cold here (for a while), but around the world it's much colder. Europe is going to get a severe cold wave, and Beijing yesterday had the coldest December day in 57 years. Canada expects to see its first cross-country white Christmas since 1971 (when people were panicking over global cooling). It's so cold in Chicago that authorities are advising people against going outside at all. Too bad President-elect (and man-made global warming believer) Barack Obama is missing this; he's on vacation in Hawaii, staying in a $9 million house that rents for about $3,500 a day.
Joe Biden and Dick Cheney have been sniping back and forth for a while (partly because the far left has so demonized the current Vice President) about the role of the Vice President. Biden really is just desperate to be relevant in the Obama Administration, and he'll be leading the White House Task Force on "Working Families." Basically, he'll be Obama's go-to guy on class warfare issues.
Obama has increased the number of fake jobs he wants to create or save to 3 million. Apparently he's the only Democrat not lowering expectations.
Barack Obama wanted to make government cool. So far, it looks like he might have succeeded (with his base anyway) because 330,000 people have applied for jobs in the Obama Administration.
The New York Times published a hatchet job against the Bush Administration about the cause of the subprime mortgage crisis. The White House responded by pointing out that Congress screwed things up, too.
Georgia could pick up another House seat after the 2010 Census.
A writer for the Savannah Morning News points out what we already knew: Georgia Democrats have problems appealing to white voters.
The first sentence of this story says it all: "'Tis the season for making whoopee."
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