INSIDERISM KNOWS NO POLITICAL BOUNDARIES

Jesse posts on the level of knowledge, conflict-of-interest, and straight-out culpability of various D.C. insiders in the whole AIG bonus scandal. Just to remind you (in case you've lost sight of the issue), we're talking about the billions of dollars that AIG executives and institutional counter-parties received from the American people as a reward for making stupid, if not fraudulent decisions that already made them rich at the expense of everyone else. That scandal.

And among the names implicated? Apart from those we already know like Hank "Goldman Sachs" Paulson, "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke, "Heckuva Job" Timmy Geithner, and Larry "Winter of Our Discontent Turned to Inglorious" Summers? Well, this time it's just a couple fellas named Chris Dodd and Barack Obama. A few highlights, and then I urge to read Jesse's post, which is short and contains links:

while the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to that very bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration, provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009.”

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Obama may be grandstanding about AIG’s bonuses now, but it’s worth noting that Obama himself is the second biggest benefactor of AIG political contributions. Second only to Senator Chris Dodd, who is quietly trying to tip-toe away from legislation he inserted into Obama’s “stimulus” spending spree that protected AIG’s bonuses.

Meanwhile, Paul Kanjorski claims he alerted Treasury about this bonus issue six or seven times in the last few weeks. And finally, Jesse reminds us that last September was the key decision point on bailing out AIG -- when the only non-official present at the meeting where Treasury/The Fed decided to bail out AIG was none other than Lloyd Blankfein, the Chairman of Goldman Sachs. And as we knew then, and certainly know now, Goldman Sachs is a major counter-party at risk with the AIG Financial Products Division.

None of this is mysterious now, and it wasn't then.