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Poll: People Are Paying Attention To AIG
A new Rasmussen poll, regarding the AIG bonuses, would seem to contradict David Axelrod:
1. How closely have you followed news stories about bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, the firm know as AIG that received a $170-billion government bailout?
55% Very closely
33% Somewhat closely
8% Not very closely
2% Not at all
2% Not sure
The poll also finds that 76% of adults believe the AIG executives should be required to give the money back, to only 17% against the idea. And 65% say the bailout will benefit Wall Street more than the U.S. taxpayer, compared to only 18% who say the taxpayer is the greater beneficiary.
And the narrative in this story has clearly gotten through, with this question: "Is most of the bailout money going to the people who created the economic crisis?" This one comes up as Yes 68%, No 18%.
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And Obama should harness this outrage and force through sweeping regulations on the sector.
For all the fervor, you have the house voting down party lines a measure that would recoup 90% of the bonus money.
It's all politics.
In a stable economy you might be able to remove all of the bad actors and re-staff with smarter individuals. But how long would it take all of the replacements to completely understand the AIG mess? It would take months - what would happen to AIG while it was forced into such a holding pattern?
To me this is like big companies hiring hackers who broke in their security rather than prosecuting them.
This is the right looking to score points on Obama - remember they've admitted to being not about legislation but are about bringing down Obama's poll numbers, and the progressive left who hated Geithner and Summers from jump street and think this is a brilliant opportunity to get rid of one, if not both.
The MSM and the blogs are feeding each other and who knows where it's all going to end up. Obama needs to step in now and harness it - I hope that is what his plan is come his prime time press conference on Tuesday night. I hope he comes out swinging with new regulations, oversight and a new regulatory body. Obama has always been a regulator, remember it was McCain and the GOP who are all about deregulation.
March 19, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Totally agree. Improving/increasing the regulatory oversight of the financial services industry was never going to be a real tough sell with the public but it wasn't going to be easy to bring some moderate GOPers and Blue Dogs fully on board. This will put pressure on those folks to get behind a new regulatory structure. But Obama has to drive it, he's got to lay the ground rules. And he needs to do it soon.
In addition to regulatory improvements, it's time to re-visit taking a number of these big companies into receivership. All of the economists I respect have been saying for months that it's what we need to do. But the Obama administration has kept it off the table, most because they feared that it was politically unpopular. And that fear wasn't unfounded - a number of polls showed a lack of public enthusiasm for "nationalization", although I'm not sure if the folks polled actually understood what that meant.
But now, it should be easy to sell this to voters. We gave them money and gave them a chance. But they effed it up - eg, AIG and BoA/ML bonuses, Citi/ML exec suite renovations, etc. So now we - the government - have to step in and take over - but only for as long as we need to clean up the mess. And we're not talking about the entire industry - just a few of the big eff ups. Clean 'em up, set 'em straight, then sell 'em back to the public.
Obama has to start backing up his talk about looking out for us with action. And he has to get a little angry. The patience of the voters is going to start wearing thin, even more than it already is.
March 19, 2009 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The poll seems about right to me. The people I know are paying attention. Josh's post on the front page is also about right to me. The people I know are also convinced that the big boys on Wall Street are pushing the rest of us around. There is a growing suspicion that there is never going to be any accountability for the irresponsible and crooked clowns who got us into this mess. While everybody else is getting laid off, they are getting million dollar bonuses.
March 19, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree to an extent. However it's the expectation that Obama was supposed to completely overhaul the system in his first two months in office that I can't fathom.
AIG got way too big, and wasn't nearly regulated enough. Obama and Co are dealing with that but it's going to take time. Everybody is outraged at the whole damn situation, and this is just their outlet. I just wish folks would vent at the macro, not the micro.
March 19, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do we need a poll for this? Of course they are following it. It's on the front cover of their newspapers, it's on the evening, morning and afternoon news and also cable news. But I would bet money that they are not following it like those on the blogosphere nor is it more of a priority than the mortgage payment they can't make.
Axelrod is trying to change the subject because it's starting to become a witch hunt. I like Axelrod, but what he says is a non issue because the American people are listening to Obama - who said we should be angry, that he will not try not to quell that anger but we must still focus on the real problem. He said that the bonuses are only a symptom.
March 19, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a REAL problem for the Administration and I still don't think they are getting it. CDOs, credit-default-swaps, counter-parties, etc. are all things that people don't quite understand. They just know it's a mess.
But they do understand these words: bailout, bonus, "nothing we can do". And that's all they need to know about this AIG situation to be angry. And as they here more about the Administration (primarily Geithner & Summers) pushing to have executive compensation rules relaxed in the Stimulus bill...which possibly could have helped in this situation...they become more angry. Because they see it like this: Obama says he's standing up for "us" but his administration is standing up for "them". And now he's saying, "there's nothing I can do". It makes him look hugely ineffective and not in control.
And that's not a place a new President should be. Especially when he has so much that he wants to do.
March 19, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
90% of the people have no idea who Geithner is and they don't care who he is. 95% don't know who Summers is and they don't care who he is.
They think AIG should not have gotten bonuses and want the government to get them back but they're not going to blame Obama for the bonuses. Nobody expects this administration to be perfect on everything. They'll give them a break for a few more months.
I'm still amazed that the vast majority of the public did not blame Bush for 9/11 because he had only been in office nine months.
March 19, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
This amazes me as well:
I'm still amazed that the vast majority of the public did not blame Bush for 9/11 because he had only been in office nine months.
Maybe because the right-wing media spun it like the king didn't totally f*ck up and was asleep at the switch. I do think part of it was people rallying around the president, but after a year or so you would have thought that people would have held him accountable, but they didn't. Maybe that was another reason that they started a war in iraq. To keep people from asking questions and trying to figure out what was going on. You remember if you asked a question, you were labeled as unpatriotic and the right-wing media would beat the drums about patriotism.
It was a very sad time in our country. It will be interesting to see what people say about that time 20 years from now.
March 19, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
FreeRider, I hope you are right. I really do. But I think we're gonna see some significant erosion in Obama's support in the next few polls. And I believe it will be tied to his administration's handling of all of this. And in order to get back on track, he has to do exactly what the first poster, Walter Mitty, said above.
I like Obama and trust his judgment (although I think Geithner and Summers are proving to be very bad picks), but in my opinion he looks ineffectual right now.
As Josh said on the front page, it looks like Wall St. is jacking around and running the show. And no one in the administration is saying: No you aren't.
March 19, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh for pete's sake...Obama is ineffectual?!? He has done more good in the first 100 days than most president have done in their terms. And the stimulus bill has already produced and saved jobs. What happens with AIG does not affect whether a person loses their job. Or can get a mortgage. Or protect the environment. Sheesh! Get a grip on reality.
March 19, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
You took my comment of "ineffectual" to mean his Presidency. That's not what I meant. I meant when it comes to handling these big companies who have put us in this mess (and allowed bonuses, renovations and non-payment of taxes) he looks ineffectual.
I'm sorry you think I need to "get a grip," but that's how I see it (and many others I know who are also Obama supporters, like me).
March 19, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the drip-drip of things like this make this an ongoing story (and a problem for the administration until they decide to get in front of it):
Geithner talks to Velshi
By ALEXANDER BURNS | 03/19/09 3:41 PM
CNN's Ali Velshi, teasing his interview with Geithner, said Thursday afternoon the secretary conceded "it was somebody from Treasury who did talk to Chris Dodd's staff on the Banking Committee."
The segment will air in the 8 p.m. hour tonight.
March 19, 2009 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kindly request: Source of your data re: percent of people who don't know of either Geithner or Summers and who don't care.
Would love a link. Thanks.
March 19, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Axelrod is on the right track though. This is shaping into a partisan/hypocrisy flashbang. The real problem with AIG is the conspiracy to boost bond ratings on Wall St junk bonds, and it took 2000 to 2006 to peel away enough oversite laws to do it. People need to go to jail, and people on both sides of the aisle need to be unseated.
As to Axelrods proposition, I think he's right. People are pissed at the headline of "the bonus", but what is the gorilla at the table in most households is job security, collapsed house value, and fear of health care disaster.
March 19, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question remains: How did Axelrod's comments that people are more focused on their own jobs than AIG get distorted into "people don't care about AIG," or "people aren't paying attention to AIG"?
March 19, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I bet that the average person who said "somewhat closely" has followed it more closely than the average person who said "very closely".
March 19, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heh, good point. "very closely" is subjective and personal.
March 19, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two things:
Paying attention to a story is not the same as being concerned about the alleged underlying issue.
People who want the "bonuses" blocked or returned are probably the people who believed the Bush spin on Iraq. That is, they accept superficial trash talk as being the deeper truth and then find later they were misled (I was one until March/April 2003).
This is a great example of the weakness of democracy and why the Founding Fathers created a Senate to keep a check on the House. Mob mentality does not make for sound government. The fact that we've suffered for years under bad government should not justify us acting link either lemmings or an enraged lynch mob.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/eds/2009/03/the-out-to-lunch-crowd-re-aigf.php
March 19, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
But I learned last year from the consensus of comemnting readers on TPM that Axelrod was a great genius about the American people and the narratives that resonate with them, with a crackerjack team like we have never seen before. So it follows that there must be something wrong with the poll questions...or perhaps the evil Washington Post selected his interview comments out of context...
March 19, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Using a right-wing Rasmussen poll to attempt to show that Axelrod "would seem" to be contradicted is simply pathetic. That comes across as a pure Republican meme. You are buying right into what the Repubs want you to buy into. And TPM is the last place I'd expect to see that. That you do not see that is unbelievable. Wow, how far you've fallen. How many times must it be repeated that Rasmussen is a Republican pollster? His latest polls re: Obama's approval ratings are a classic example. He is an outlier. See fivethirtyeight.com for details. Setting aside the AIG distraction...which has no impact on the real issue of fixing the economy for most people...using Rasmussen is just a very cheap shot to try to make a point.
March 19, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems to be a bit of a bait and switch going on here....Yes Americans are following the AIG debacle, and yes, Axelrod may have been a bit optimistic in thinking Americans "don't care"....
Ok, but that is not the same thing as Americans holding the President responsible, or seeing him as weak and impotent on this issue. TPM is hammering this idea that Obama's economic agenda is on the ropes over this, but has yet to really show me the causal link that makes that true.
Clearly this is an important moment for the Administration, and how this ends up will play a role in how successful they will be in selling the next big bailout this Spring. But the poll and the chatter aside, did any of you watch the Town Hall in Calif. yesterday? If you did, you heard the President of the USA being interrupted by the crowd chanting "Obama, Obama, Obama!"? In fact, when was the last time you heard a President's name being chanted, cheerfully, that is?
Point being, the AIG thing is not the end all be all of this Administration, nor of our ability to enforce a new way of doing business on Wall St.
If you continue to cover this breathlessly, with this impression of grave danger to Obama, it's going to be hard to keep paying attention.
March 19, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I completely agree.
March 19, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
people I know follow it because it is everywhere.
no one I know cares.
March 19, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone who watches tv, listens to the radio or uses the internet is "following AIG" because they have no choice. The chattering class just can't shut up about it.
A poll question is a lot like a current events pop quiz.
Got a friend in Austin who was laid off her job and qualifies for extended unemployment, but the money is dried up and Gov. Rick "Goodhair" Perry has turned down the federal bucks that would help make up the difference.
My friend hears a lot about AIG, but that isn't what she is thinking about 24/7.
March 19, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regarding the debate re: how many people are paying attention to all of this and how many are not...
Guess what? It doesn't matter as long as a critical mass is reached. (See Malcolm Gladwell's books "The Tipping Point" and "Blink"...)
"'The Tipping Point' showed how ideas and fads can reach critical mass, becoming social epidemics that change people's thinking and habits. His next book, 'Blink,' is about rapid cognition and the way human beings can make judgments based on the thinnest slice of experience."
Bottom line: You don't need a majority of folk embracing a new idea or perspective in order for that idea or perspective to be fully integrated into society as a whole. Translate: When a "tipping point" occurs..."rapid cognition" usually follows, with the result: a major societal shift transforms the landscape within a "blink" of the eye.
My personal experience: When a smaller group of people are fully awake, fully aware, fully present, fully engaged in an issue or process...
...hold on to your hats.
March 19, 2009 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink