Of course we need a thread to talk about the pay caps for TARP fund recipients, right?

This story From Bloomberg seems to be creating a bit of a stir today:

Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms.

The advisers include Gene Sperling, who last year took in $887,727 from Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches mostly to financial companies, including the firm run by accused Ponzi scheme mastermind R. Allen Stanford. Another top aide, Lee Sachs, reported more than $3 million in salary and partnership income from Mariner Investment Group, a New York hedge fund.

As part of Geithner's kitchen cabinet, Sperling and Sachs wield influence behind the scenes at the Treasury Department, where they help oversee the $700 billion banking rescue and craft executive pay rules and the revamp of financial regulations. Yet they haven't faced the public scrutiny given to Senate-confirmed appointees, nor are they compelled to testify in Congress to defend or explain the Treasury's policies.

Boortz take? Is there any charge or any evidence that any of these dollars earned by these Geithner aides were earned illegally? Are we talking criminal activity here? Or are we just demonizing some people who made a lot of money. If there's fraud or other criminal activity then go get 'em. If not, quit the whining.

What makes all of this all the more absurd is that it is Geithner that we should be focusing on, not his workers. He's the tax cheat. He's the willful, intentional, pre-medicated, conscious tax cheat who is now in charge of the cabinet department that runs the IRS. Somehow I have a bit of a problem with that.

Stolen from fark.com and used with love whenever TARP comes up. -ww

A few details to note from the report. We are coming to find that these nine financial institutions -- Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Bank of New York Mellon - were chosen not because they needed money, but because of their size and involvement in the financial system. They were big players, and the government wanted control

This is also where Hank Paulson got into some trouble. Recent news articles have reported that Paulson lied to the American public. Okay ... let's first nail down the definition of a lie. A person lies only when they utter a statement that they know to be untrue. Now, Hank Paulson assured us last year that these nine institutions receiving bailout money were healthy and that they were only taking the money for the good of the economy. However, it turns out that this was untrue and federal officials (including Paulson) knew it. The report says, "Senior government officials had affirmative concerns at the time the nine institutions were selected about the health of at least some of those institutions ... The Federal Reserve had concerns over the financial condition of several of these institutions individually and for all of them collectively absent some governmental action. And former Secretary Paulson noted concerns about the outright failure of one of the institutions."

Then the government comes along and tells these institutions that took bailout money ... under the threat of government retribution ... that they must submit to executive compensation restrictions. Restrictions that will only grow and expand with Democrats in charge.

Nice. Bureaucrats don't like what the executives of certain financial institutions are making. The institutions are healthy .. at least healthy enough to weather the downturn. But this doesn't matter to the bureaucrat class. They want something done about the money these people are making. So they gin up some rather dire threats and force these institutions to take government bailout money. Besides, the more people who accept the bailout, the more involved the government seems to be in rescuing the country from financial collapse. Then, as soon as the money is in hand the bureaucrats start setting executive compensation rates. Yeah ... that's the way it's supposed to work, right?

So there I was watching Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday afternoon. Before a break we get the tremendously exciting news that "Michael Moore is in the situation room." The Blitzer explains to the viewers that "(Moore) is going to explain why he thinks that US capitalism is nothing but a Ponzi scheme."

How wonderful. CNN and Wolf Blitzer have time to devote to fat slob Michael Moore so he can explain his anti-capitalist views. But, has CNN ever had the time to devote to a spokesman from Americans for Fair Taxation? How about "Congressman John Linder is in the situation room. He is going to explain how we can get rid of the income tax and workers can keep 100% of what they earn."

Yeah .... This is me holding my breath.

With the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, there has been a lot of talk about the current state of our financial system one year later. With Obama's talks on Wall Street, and Barney Frank still banging the drum for more regulation ... let us not forget two extremely important entities that got this bull rolling: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In fact, here is a little factoid that the mainstream media will probably not tell you. A report from the Government Accountability Office says that "privatizing the government-sponsored enterprises (GSE) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could mitigate the systemic economic risk caused by the federal government's guarantees to the now-defunct mortgage giants, but that the benefits of privatization could be reversed by government efforts to insure private-sector mortgages."

Oh no! Not privatize! Where's the government? How is the government to save people? How is the government going to make people more dependent if we privatize?

There he was, our anti-capitalist president on Wall Street yesterday. He was there to proudly announce his intentions to pile a bunch of new regulations on our financial markets. Well ... at least he comes by that honestly. After all, if you distrust and even dislike the free marketplace, and if you have the power ... why NOT regulate? Obama sees the government as the only entity that can straighten out our economic situation right now, so to him Wall Street must seem like enemy territory.

Maybe someday Obama can make a speech in Washington and tell us about all of the reforms he's going to introduce to stop government from meddling in the free marketplace. Sure ... Wall Street had a ball creating all sorts of investment vehicles with these worthless home loans; and those investments finally tanked. But what about addressing the people who made those worthless home loans possible? Names? OK, how about Barney Frank and Chris Dodd?

Just remember folks, Wall Street wouldn't have been able to aid and abet a financial disaster this way if our wonderful federal government hadn't enabled and promoted those worthless home loans. The source of the problem, President Obama, was Washington DC, not Wall Street.

And that brings us to .......

OK ... I need to take a time off from speaking to or writing for the more rational readers/listeners out there and address my liberal detractors. The rest of you can read along .. but this is such a basic lesson in logic that you may find it a bit plebian.

To my leftist bedwetting friends:

So, you got a little upset about my tweet yesterday, did you? Now let's see, what was it I said? Oh yeah ... here you go: "Obama on Wall Street today. That's like sending a child molester to speak to a kindergarten class."

Well, it didn't take long before you were chattering amongst yourselves. Yeah .. that evil right wing nutjob hate-filled radical right wing talk show host just compared your precious president with a child molester.

I'm not going to ask you if you're really that ignorant. I already know the answer to that one. I'm going to try to help, though, by explaining the construct of that sentence for you.

Now ... through your illogical liberal fog you are claiming to have read that tweet as comparing Obama to a child molester. Let's see if that is supportable.

The word "like" appears in the sentence. The appearance of that word would indicate that I'm comparing one action or object with another. Look at the word following "like." That word is "sending," not "Obama." Yup ... what I'm doing here is comparing an action, not a person. I'm comparing one action to another action, not a person to a person. What actions? The action of Obama going to Wall Street to the action of a child molester going to a kindergarten class. So your accusation that I'm comparing your God to a child molester is looking a little weak, isn't it?

The question remains; why would I see a comparison between Obama traveling to Wall Street to that of a child molester going to a gathering of children? That should be pretty easy, even for a logic-challenged liberal. That would be because I consider Obama to be just as much of a threat to Wall Street as I would a child molester to children.

Now I know this isn't going to make any difference to you. You know that your followers are every bit as challenged when it comes to logical thought as you are ... so you will continue to use this tweet to attack me. That's fine. When I'm not being attacked by blogs like ThinkProgress or Media Matters I start to worry that the content of my program isn't compelling enough. Your attacks serve as my validation. I just wanted you to see that your logic failures don't go unnoticed.

If it is back, it won't be for long. Today Obama is going to give a speech on Wall Street. Literally. Obama on Wall Street. Wonderful. That's like sending a child molester to a day care center. Obama will be speaking just steps from the New York Stock Exchange, "[stressing] that regulators and legislators not only in the US, but around the world, need to take the next steps to tighten financial regulation."

Ten days from now, the G20 summit will work on their plans to curtain banking bonuses, as well as other means to regulate the global financial system.

Oh you're going to love this one. An amazing attack on the American entrepreneurial spirit. There's a repulsive suggestion floating around Washington right now. Louis Gerstner, the former CEO of International Business Machines Corp is pushing the idea that short-term investment gains should be taxed at 80%. Gerstner says that taxing short-term gains would counter the culture of "greed" on Wall Street.

Meanwhile, he believes that selling an investment after five years should carry a zero tax rate in order to re-establish a culture of true investors compared to traders.

Do you realize how many American businesses would not exist today if short term investment gains had been taxed at 80%. If you have an idea, count yourself among the elite. Remember ... government education.

Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money explains market manipulation.

Now that just ain't right.

And it's not just Citigroup, folks. AIG pays a British soccer team $125 million to put "AIG" on their uniforms. This is the same AIG that just got a $150 billion loan from the taxpayers. Someone from a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense says it would be more accurate for the soccer team to put "US Treasury" on their uniforms. How about "U.S. Taxpayers"?

There are more examples. Bank of America took a $25 billion loan for the Treasury's Troubled Assets Relief Program. Meanwhile, Bank of America wants to pay the New York Yankees $20 million per year to be their sponsor. Bank of America also has its name on the Carolina Panthers football stadium ... that cost them $140 million.

Look, folks ... I'm sure that there are a lot of companies out there that have done it right. But there are a heck of a lot, especially on a larger scale, that just don't seem to get the message.

Citigroup seems to be next. Remember the announcement last week that Citi was laying-off about 52,000 workers? Well now the government ... that means US ... is going to absorb tens of billions of dollars in Citibank losses.

Who's next? Well, how about the airlines? Oh, and the TV Networks are complaining about lost ad revenue, and since they were some of the largest consumers of the Obama Kool-Aide maybe some money ought to go their way. My guess? Look for some plan to bail out consumers over-extended on their credit cards.

The stock market was down another 400 points or so yesterday. People are wondering where in the world this will end. Retirement funds are being devastated. People are losing jobs. The picture certainly isn't rosy right now, and nobody can really explain why. The media, on the other hand, is certain that there is one recent event that is having no effect whatsoever on this economic slide; and that would be the election of Barack Obama.

OK ... why don't you try to put on an investor hat for a moment here. Let's say you're considering getting back in the stock market. You know that some stocks out there are at historic lows, and they're bound to bounce back ... right? So why don't you just take some money out of your savings or out from under your mattress and plow it back into the market?

Let's see if we can find any reasons why you might hesitate.

We have a president-elect who ...

... has promised to raise capital gains taxes, perhaps even double them. So this guy is just waiting for you to jump into the stock market and make some money so he can seize a huge portion of it. Why jump now? Obama has been asked if he plans to go forward with his capital gains tax increase, but he's not saying. Just hold off on your investments for a while until he tips his hand. If he goes the tax increase route you might want to consider trying to move your money offshore to grow until he's out of the picture.

... has promised to sign the so-called "Card Check" bill. Now again, you're smarter than the average voter, and you realize that this unionization-through-intimidation idea is going to have an adverse affect on American business. As soon as the bill is signed union thugs (organizers) will start their petition drives at thousands of businesses across the nation. Large businesses and small businesses. America's largest employer, Wal-Mart, will be one of the first targets. You don't know how far this will spread, but you do know that every business that is unionized will be a poor investment for you. So you wait .. you wait to see what is going to happen with card check.

... has promised to raise income taxes on the largest jobs producing segment of our economy, small businesses. During the campaign you heard him say that he would not raise taxes on 95% of small businesses, but you know that most of the jobs rest with the remaining 5%, and that's where most of the new jobs would be created. The ignorant voters bought his 95% line, but you're not that stupid. You saw through his rhetoric. So, again, why jump into the market now? Wait until we see what Obama is going to do with these tax increases on America's jobs-producing machine.

... has promised more business regulation. Obama is no fan of free enterprise. He loves government. Obama believes America is great because of government. You really think you need to wait before you make your investment moves until you see just what regulatory punishment Obama has in mind for the free market.

So .. think about it. We've only scratched the surface here. We could also talk about expanding the family leave act and many other little federal anti-business goodies. Invest now? Why? Doesn't it make more sense to wait until you get a true measure of our new anti-capitalist president?