The American Trial Lawyers Association

According to a new report, Goldman Sachs is set to make the largest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history. After a very nice first quarter, the firm is set to payout almost $1 billion dollars worth of bonuses. The only problem with these bonuses and profits is that Goldman received more than $12 billion dollars from the federal government last year in Bush's bailout package. Goldman has powerful allies in Washington — and perhaps the most powerful ally was Henry Paulson, President Bush's Treasury Secretary and a former chief executive of the firm. With all of the outrage that erupted over AIG's bonuses, Goldman is apparently under the assumption that no one will notice their greed and corruption, or that they've bought and paid for numerous high-powered politicians in Washington.


And speaking of corporate greed, a retired health insurance executive confessed this week that insurance companies deliberately confuse policyholders and attempt to dump sick patients to plump their profit margins. According to the executive, they look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, or a pre-existing condition when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment. In addition to these revelations, an investigation by Democratic Senator John Rockefeller revealed this week that more than two-thirds of health insurance companies are using flawed database information on their patients, causing them to be overcharged for insurance. With all of these revelations, you'd think that Congress would want to reprimand the health insurance industry. But, as usual, they are being rewarded for their greed in the form of Max Baucus's health reform plan, which would put more than $80 million dollars in the pockets of the insurance industry, and do little to help US citizens.


And while we're talking about taxpayer's being screwed, how about this one – It turns out that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford's foray in South America was actually taxpayer funded. Sanford spent more than $21,000 dollars worth of taxpayers' money on international travel last year, at least part of which was spent on travel to Argentina, where his mistress is located. This guy needs to go ahead and resign before we find out anymore information. At this point, he's just embarrassing himself.


In other news this week, Congressman Ron Paul, the favorite candidate of people who didn't want to vote for a real candidate, said in a speech that the Obama administration's goal is complete economic collapse. He added that Democrats who voted for the president's war funding request, which gave an additional $106 billion to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, were actually voting in favor of the wars, not just authorization of the president's agenda. All I can say is – The jig is up, guys. He found us out. All democrats secretly love these wars, and nothing would make us happier than for the entire economy to collapse. And we would have gotten away with it, too, had it not been for you meddling conservatives!

Labels: Affair, Bailout, Economy, Farron Cousins, Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, Insurance, Mark Sanford, Max Baucus, Politics, Raw Story, Recession, Ron Paul, Scandal, Sex, Stimulus