AIG Bonuses

I cannot help but write and comment about the AIG Bonus Debacle. AIG has been bailed out will billions of taxpayer funds. Then these jokers turn around and award themselves multi-million dollar bonuses. This has resulted in a public outcry. Why should a company that almost went bankrupt and required government bailout deserve any bonuses.

Whose fault was this in the first place? Obviously something was going wrong at insurer AIG. The financial market as well has been dismal over the past year. But let’s take those facts for granted. When the government decided to step in and bail out the company, should they have ensured the bailout money come with some restrictions to prevent nonsense like big bonuses.

Where does the buck stop with the responsibility? Is the treasury secretary to blame? How about President Obama? Somebody is sure to blame here. Congress is smartly reacting by creating a new law to heavily tax these bonuses. In other words, the taxpayer is going to recoup the money paid out by these4 bonuses.

The American people are not placated. AIG is reporting that they are worried about their employees’ safety. There have been death threats on the employees. Luckily AIG has not released the names of the specific employees who received the bonuses. They do not want to put a target on the heads of these employees.

This could have been prevented by not issuing the bonuses in the first place. Even if there were some contracts in place, the bonus should not have been paid. Let any employees who think that they deserve a bonus sue the company for the bonus. I bet a judge will agree that helping drive a company into bankruptcy is not reason for a bonus.

Blagojevich Impeachment

The Illinois house voted to impeach govern Blagojevich today. This guy is charged with trying to sell the senate position being vacated by Obama. Is it any wonder that dirty deeds have happened. We are talking about Chicago here. The previous governor is currently serving a prison sentence.

A state senate trial will decide Blagojevich's fate. Even Harris, who was his eventual choice to replace Obama is having problems. Harris was denied entry to the senate in Washington DC this week. There is too much controversy for the governor's choice to count yet. I believe that problem will work itself out. Both the democrats and the senate want the Illinois seat matter resolved.

Blagojevich is still claiming innocence in the matter and has refused to step down from office. One thing is for sure. The governor has a lot of enemies in the Illinois house. Only one person out of over 100 state senators decided to vote against impeachment.

Democratic Agenda

A prominent blog author stated that he voted for Obama. That was not surprising. However he also said that he voted Republican for everything else. He explained himself by saying he just did not want a lot of tax increases. And that is what the Democratic party means to him.

The Obama vote was to keep the American dream alive that anybody can make it big. It was also because he believed that Barrack’s vision, leadership, and motivation would help the USA. The guy did not want to appear too far to the right with his Republican voting. So he did admit that he did not think tax cuts would help us at this point. But he definitely did not want any tax hikes either.

There was a lot of commentary on the blog post. There is a growing concern that with all the government bailouts, we are becoming a socialist nation. There is also worry that with the House, Senate, and presidency controlled by the Democrats, we have lost some level of checks and balances. Even Sarah Palin has come out and said that we cannot leave this happen.

Going further on the socialism idea, I keep hearing people say they don’t want the government to take from those who work, in order to give to those who don’t. Nobody likes free handouts like welfare unless it is you yourself who is on welfare.

And lest we get a little to serious here on this blog, I will say that I voted for McCain. However I hope that Obama can do a good job and get the United States out of the financial mess we are in. I liked one comment I saw recently that just said, “Gobama.”

Results Snapshot

I write this late in the evening on election day. NBC is calling Obama the winner. It is a tricky business to estimate who is going to win. However the outcome seems clear given the electoral vote advantage that Obama has. As of a little after 11PM, Obama has 284 electoral votes compared to 146 for McCain. You only need 270 electoral votes to win the election. It appears that Obama was victorious.

Obama won a number of key states that corresponded to many electoral votes. For example he won New York with 31 electoral votes. And he also won California with 55 electoral votes. McCain on the other hand, seemed to win smaller states with less electoral votes. The one big state McCain won was Texas with 34 electoral votes. The only state too close to call that had many electoral votes was Florida with 27 electoral votes.

It had been a long and hard race for McCain. He seemed to lose steam after the current financial crisis reached its peak. There was a blip in the radar with excitement over his choice of Sarah Palin as Vice Presidential running mate. That did not last for long. Obama had the staying power. Record number of Americans came to the polls. I heard reports that this many voters had not come out since 1920 when women won the right to vote.

This event winds down the 2008 race. I might post some more about the events that lead up to the January inauguration of Obama. However the election portion is done. Who knows? Perhaps I shall start writing about Election 2012 a bit early. I feel like I want to do more for my chosen candidate than I did this time. Yes I went out and rocked the vote. Sometimes it takes more than that to get your candidate to win.

I Voted

Today was the big day. I actually woke up a little late. So I was worries that going to vote would make me really late. Nevertheless, I had to do my civic duty. The girlfriend tagged along. Last election I was in a different house in a different county. So this would be the first time I would vote at the local school by my new house. I was pleased to see that there was actually some parking near the school. I was in a hurry after all.

Outside of the school I saw a guy talking to people walking up to vote. When I got near him, I recognized him as a member of the local civic association that had come door to door. He asked us if we had any questions. I told him we were good. Maybe he was not one of those guys who try to harass you to vote for their choice. Perhaps he was just part of the election staff. Who knows. There were not any signs as directing your where to go. I just went inside one of the open doors.

When I got in, there was a large sign that said, "One line starts here". I stood in line. When my turn came, and a man shouted "next in line", I went up to him. However some lady cut in front of me. Normally that would mean she needed to get the beat down. But she was older, and was pushing an even older guy in a wheelchair. So I decided she would get a little grace. But by then I was in the middle of nowhere with nobody to service me. I decided to get back into line.

I told the guy who eventually serviced me my name. He did not ask for any identification which was strange. The only needed me to verify my birth date. I signed a paper that came out of a little printer. Then I got a voting card. And I went to stand in yet another line. I stepped to a voting machine when the time came. I put my voting card in the machine. However I knew something was not right when I tried to select English as the language. I had to keep hitting the button to start the voting session.

It was a total chore voting on this machine. I think the touch screen was totally hosed. Either that or the machine was very slow. I kept hitting the buttons I wanted. Somehow I got through all the questions and submitted my vote. It was a little confusing on the way out. I tried to give my stuff to a lady that looked like she worked there. But she said I needed to give it to the other guy that was handling the line coming in. Overall the voting experience felt a little more disorganized than at my last location in a different county. All of these people are volunteers. So I doubt much more can be done to improve this, unless I myself decided to volunteer and step in.

Palin on SNL

Last weekend vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin appeared on Saturday Night Live. Tina Fey continued her impersonation of Palin from the previous week. The SNL ratings were off the charts. They got around 14 million viewers. SNL viewership is up this year, sharply contrasting with last year's numbers. The real question is whether Palin's visit to SNL will impact the election. Like everyone else, I did some Google searches to see what various authorities on the subject were saying.

ABC News reports that this showed Parlin could take a joke. She only spent 6 minutes on camera during the show. There are a lot of other people doing Sarah Palin impersonations these days. Nothing on the SNL show was too outrageous. Speaking of impersonations, Lisa Nova is doing Palin impersonations on YouTube. However I will not be watching Lisa Nova for her brilliant satire any time soon. If you have ever seen a Lisa Nova video, you know what I am talking about.

Yahoo News reported that the Palin visit to SNL made her favorability ratings drop a bit. However experts agree that it will have no impact whatsoever on the election results. The greatest impact is to the SNL show itself. Some Republicans may be thinking that this is too serious a time for Palin to be appearing on SNL.

The Wired Blog said that people all over the United States were doing Google searches on SNL plus Palin. Like I mentioned earlier, I did my own Google searches to research what others were thinking about the SNL appearance. NBC Universal has been diligent in issuing take down notices to YouTube so that the SNL skit would not be shown. I doubt this has anything to do with Palin herself or the election. This is just NBC protecting its copyright.

Personally I enjoyed the first impersonation done by Tina Fey on SNL. It was actually funny. I did not tune in to see Palin herself come on the show the following week. However I do credit her with having the audacity to actually appear. It takes strong character to be able to laugh when people are making fun of you.

VP Debate

Palin came out in the vice presidential debate, proving she is a force to be reckoned with. She walked up to Biden and asked if she could call him Joe. I confess I did not watch the actual debate. However I caught a couple shows with analysts going bonkers over Palin's part in the debate.

You had to love how Palin controlled the debate, connecting with the crowd and the viewer audience. She was seen winking on more than one occasion. She shocked analysts when she mentioned that she advocated an expansion of the vice presidential powers. LOL.

Biden had a tough job. He could not come out swinging. Otherwise he would look bad as if he was beating up a woman. Biden was careful not to correct Palin so as not to appear to aggressive. I give him some credit. He did hold his own. Then again he has a lot of experience.

Palin was the underdog. Nobody thought she would fare well in the debate. She proved them wrong. Now its up to McCain and Obama to duke it out in their second debate.