Obama's Gold

By: Mr. Curmudgeon
mrcurmudgeon@inthepublicsquare.com

“Ah, excuse me, mister, I never knowed it was you. I never looked at your face - I just looked at your hands and the money you gave me. Beg pardon, mister, I promise I'll never put the bite on you again.”

--Humphrey Bogart from the film classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

On its official website, under the heading “Corporate Responsibility,” American International Group (AIG) has this to say:  “AIG recognizes that its investments in support of our customers, employees and the communities in which we operate are critical to our success. AIG’s ongoing efforts to be an outstanding corporate citizen and promote responsible and sustainable business practices are essential to our long-term business objective of creating value for our shareholders and serving the interests of our clients.”

Considering AIG “too big to fail,” the Bush administration asked for and got congressional approval for an $85 billion bailout, giving the U.S. government an 80-percent stake in the insurance giant at taxpayer’s expense. But recently, when news leaked that AIG executives received $165 million in bonuses after driving the company into the ground, taxpayers were mystified and angered, giving congress an opportunity to haul AIG’s Chief Executive Edward Liddy before a House sub-committee for a grilling under the intense light of television news cameras.

Truly, we are living in interesting times. A sign of the times is the national obsession with AIG executive compensation at a time when congress is about to give President Obama $3.5 trillion dollars in bonuses for targeted Democratic Party constituencies. What is becoming abundantly clear is that there are no good guys in this bag of snakes; not the political class (left or right), not the corporate class, and certainly not the entitlement deranged American people. There is a war brewing. It is not a war for land but treasure – bailout treasure, and things are about to get very ugly.

America, once the shining city upon a hill, is no longer valued for its bright promise of freedom in this dark, despotic world but for its shiny golden ornaments – plunder for the Visigoths at the gates. And We The People are the barbarians.

It was once asked, “what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but loose his soul?” The answer, I’m afraid, is in the multitude of empty souls extending from sea to shining sea, with eyes and outstretched hands facing Washington. The fight is on for a cut of Obama’s gold, and the battle to take back some of AIG's bailout bullion is the first of many skirmishes to come. Or, as Walter Houston noted in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, “Ah, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last but when the piles of gold begin to grow... that's when the trouble starts.”

 --Mr. Curmudgeon