This kind of thing will continue for as long as people continue to believe that government is something that is apart and separate from society and can intervene to “protect” people and “smooth things out” (e.g., the market, financial uncertainty and pain, etc.). These kind of people see government as equivalent to (or in some cases superior to) God. Whether you believe in God or not, that’s a scary attitude. The kind of people I’m referring to say, in so many words, “it’s O.K. for a group of individual men and women, as long as they call themselves ‘government,’ to lie, steal and kill because it’s for the ‘greater good.’ After all, if there was no ‘government’ chaos would break loose.” Do they mean that things wouldn’t be going as smoothly as they are now?
The greed and deception continue…that’s a big “I told you so”. The government being the “enabler” by rewarding poor business practices should expect nothing less than the snowball effect that’s now in progress. They should only “bail out” individual’s home loan rates to reasonable and lengthened their loan term…and also send a check to those not needing help, to be fair to all…there’s your stimulus package. Let the chips fall and the economy will take care of itself. It’s got play out quicker than the government pretending they know how to fix it. Can you say taxpayer revolt?
To buy the thrift with a loan from the feds. Banks made a mistake lobbying to get into the insurance business. Once in they opened the door. Now the opportunity is reversed and I suspect the Insurance companies will make a hay day iof it and the banks who not the very large ones.
The right wing ideological belief (as in “it’s a religion”) backed up by right-wing enforced government power (referred to as the Reagan Revolution) led to the lack of regulation that has led to a generation of looting by insiders. Duh!!!
Y’all lost for real reasons. On to Palin in 2012 with the confederate flags and the scary lynch mob rallies. A peculiar regional party from a backwards part of this great nation soldiers on–somehow.
As the corp. exec said in to Finch in the movie Network–“You have disturbed the primal forces of nature and you must ATONE!”–except he was arguing for the deregulated biased carnival network that became Fox News and the networks of Hate Radio. How ironic.
When is this country going to stop rewarding irresponsibility, failure, lack of ambition, and laziness? Businesses everywhere are struggling, downsizing, and going under due to the current economic crisis, no one is there to bail them out, nor should there be. The government is sending the wrong message and only making this country weak by attempting to save these improperly managed companies.
Norman, the important thing to remember is OBAMA WON! Repeat it again, it’ll make you feel so much better: OBAMA WON!
you’ll never have to worry about a thing now! The economy will finally get fixed, the wars in Iraq AND Afghanistan will be over, you’ll be hugged by absolutely everyone you meet when you travel overseas because America will finally be loved again by the world, you’ll never have to pay your mortgage, college will be free, bars will accept foodstamps, marijuana will be legal, they’ll capture Bigfoot, and we’ll finally make contact with ET.
The best part is, if none of that happens you can spend at LEAST another 4 years blaming the Republicans instead of actually doing something to make the world a better place!
And why did Barney Frank tell the American public all was well with Fannie and Freddie, his hack friends? Because they all were in his pocket…. Hey Norman, go back to moonbatville.
If you research the mortgage mess (not relying on major newspapers or TV news) you will see that government started the mess and continues to create a mess. Congress insisted that banks loan money to individuals of questionable ability to repay the loans (Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were the main forces behind this). Congress threatened to restrict the banks activities if the loans were not made. In order to make loans to these people “creative financing” (i.e- ARM’s, interest only payments, etc.) was needed. People who should never have gotten loans received them. Fannie & Freddie bought up the loans creating a market for them and encouraging more of these loans to be made. Shockingly, after the initial few years of low payments “adjusted” to the actual payment it would take to pay off the loan these people couldn’t pay up. Thus, defaults, thus more housing on the market, thus decreasing home values, thus can’t refinance, etc. Government jumps in again and this time give $700 billion away (if you believe they are investing the money in these companies you likely believe that they also have your social security money safely stashed away in an account with your name on it). Oh, that’s $700 billion of our money which they don’t have so the bill should be coming to each of us in the next couple years.
and it was Obama who pressured Freddi and Fannie to back more “risky” loans in his community action days (which I think is a euphamism for “give free stuff to people”).
When McCain and Bush wanted to move to put some additional oversight on Fannie and Freddie it was Congressional Democrats (including Pelosi and Obama) who blocked those efforts because they couldn’t risk affecting their constituent base of the “down-trodden”.
Obama won because of a very unpopular president (much of which was caused by media bias and war weariness) as well as the media’s absolute love affair with Obama – the man could do no wrong and every dump he took was the most glorious dump ever. Biden had as many gaffs as Palin but noone mentioned them, if Palin broke wind the Washinton Post ran stories how she was adding to greenhouse gas emissions.
Congrats that your candidate won, I’m not saying he’s not my president, I pray that his term will be good for America. But don’t fall into the stupid belief that he’s some kind of Messiah who’s going to fix everything with the stoke of his magical pen.
Funny you should mention a tax payor revolt……didn’t we have one in 1776??
And didn’t a document called the Declaration of Independence establish that when Government does not serve the People it is the right/duty of the People to change that Government??
I agree , however i wont say he is My President until he proves he is good for the country. Proof is always in the performance. The rest means nothing. Now at least he is inheriting a problem he helped cause. hope he had a fix for this planned prior to the election besides raising taxes. People who could not pay then wont be able to pay years from now. Some thngs never change and dont worry Obama already knows that. he just used what he had to use to get into the white house. Now the rest is up to him. if he doesnt perform hell be ousted like all other Presidnets. The people simply wont stand for non performance. Look what happened to Bush.
How far HIG has fallen. This is a last gasp for them to remain solvent. A shame as they are a pretty well run company that treats their employees fairly. They are the best employer (agency or company) that I had in my 15 years in the insurance industry.
Back in 2004 I met Ramani Ayer at a company meeting. I asked him what plans the company was making for their 200th anniversary in 2010. He said something like “we just want to make it that far” and got a big laugh from the crowd.
Now there is the very real prospect they will be gone in a few months. Amazing. CNA, for over a decade on a shaky financial roller coaster, is still alive. Travelers/St Paul combined, confused the heck out of their agents but is surviving. Chubb appearing to do ok, as expected. If you would have told me two years ago that Cincy would be worth 2.5x HIG I’d have laughed in your face. Now they are laughing.
Hartford always had the best financials and the conservative operating philosophy, diversified their risk well and had a good mix between life & P/C. They avoided getting involved in much in the way of mortgage backed securities (I remember a company memo saying this when I was still there) but got dragged down in the whole credit default swap pile of crap.
And that is what sucks: the company still runs well but their investments have hosed them, with the failure of AIG leading the way.
I’m glad I’m out of the financial services industry. It appears that no matter who I might work for they are merely a few months away from a few bad decisions blowing up centuries of work.
Beg to differ, I disagree with your take on Hartford’s problems. I left there in May of this year and I can assure you that in Middle Market we were not underpricing business. It was rare that we won on price and we had to quote a pretty large # of accounts to be able to write new business.
Select Customer, however, might be a different story. I know their pricing there seemed low but they have been running a combined ratio in the 80’s for years in small commercial. Hartford’s small business segment has basically been a money factory for them for the better part of a decade.
Hartford and low pricing usually don’t go together. In fact if I heard that certain companies were being asked to quote (Cincy, CNA, many regionals) I’d usually decline to quote as I knew my opportunity was limited.
It is absolutely outrageous to allow Hartford to buy a S&L in order to jump on the bailout bandwagon. Perhaps if they had not been underpricing business for the past three year, they would have been closer to an underwriting profit at least.I guess this is their way of avoiding Federal oversight of their insurance operation. Sad. I lost all respect for Hartford upon reading this article. They deserve what they get.
If Mr Wacko you are referring to me, how do you know that I even have a ‘wing’?? In addition, who used the term ‘armed rebellion’? Fortunately, unlike 1776, we are “armed” with less deadly means of enacting change. The ‘point of a gun’ would not be an option in our current culture. However, becoming politically active and thinking outside the Democratic/Republican box may be where answers lay. Clearly neither major party has our best interests at heart and Management of many US corporations across the country and across industries has been useless in providing long term growth/profit.
Remember the days when Agents were fighting banks getting into the insurance business?
If The Hartford has money to buy thrifts, then why does it need bailout funds?
Hmmm. 10 mil invesment will bring you upto 4 billion in return. Can I purchase a thrift? Seems like a real good deal.
Simple: $10 million s&l purchase to get $1 to $3 billion government bailout. What a crock.
Will anyone loan me $10 million so I can soak the taxpayers for $ 3 Billion?
Does anyone see the problem here? Let them go under just like GM should.
I keep hearing people talking about parachutes and bonuses, who cares about that when you have something like this going on.
This kind of thing will continue for as long as people continue to believe that government is something that is apart and separate from society and can intervene to “protect” people and “smooth things out” (e.g., the market, financial uncertainty and pain, etc.). These kind of people see government as equivalent to (or in some cases superior to) God. Whether you believe in God or not, that’s a scary attitude. The kind of people I’m referring to say, in so many words, “it’s O.K. for a group of individual men and women, as long as they call themselves ‘government,’ to lie, steal and kill because it’s for the ‘greater good.’ After all, if there was no ‘government’ chaos would break loose.” Do they mean that things wouldn’t be going as smoothly as they are now?
The greed and deception continue…that’s a big “I told you so”. The government being the “enabler” by rewarding poor business practices should expect nothing less than the snowball effect that’s now in progress. They should only “bail out” individual’s home loan rates to reasonable and lengthened their loan term…and also send a check to those not needing help, to be fair to all…there’s your stimulus package. Let the chips fall and the economy will take care of itself. It’s got play out quicker than the government pretending they know how to fix it. Can you say taxpayer revolt?
To buy the thrift with a loan from the feds. Banks made a mistake lobbying to get into the insurance business. Once in they opened the door. Now the opportunity is reversed and I suspect the Insurance companies will make a hay day iof it and the banks who not the very large ones.
The right wing ideological belief (as in “it’s a religion”) backed up by right-wing enforced government power (referred to as the Reagan Revolution) led to the lack of regulation that has led to a generation of looting by insiders. Duh!!!
Y’all lost for real reasons. On to Palin in 2012 with the confederate flags and the scary lynch mob rallies. A peculiar regional party from a backwards part of this great nation soldiers on–somehow.
As the corp. exec said in to Finch in the movie Network–“You have disturbed the primal forces of nature and you must ATONE!”–except he was arguing for the deregulated biased carnival network that became Fox News and the networks of Hate Radio. How ironic.
Figure it out, Brainiac.
When is this country going to stop rewarding irresponsibility, failure, lack of ambition, and laziness? Businesses everywhere are struggling, downsizing, and going under due to the current economic crisis, no one is there to bail them out, nor should there be. The government is sending the wrong message and only making this country weak by attempting to save these improperly managed companies.
Norman, the important thing to remember is OBAMA WON! Repeat it again, it’ll make you feel so much better: OBAMA WON!
you’ll never have to worry about a thing now! The economy will finally get fixed, the wars in Iraq AND Afghanistan will be over, you’ll be hugged by absolutely everyone you meet when you travel overseas because America will finally be loved again by the world, you’ll never have to pay your mortgage, college will be free, bars will accept foodstamps, marijuana will be legal, they’ll capture Bigfoot, and we’ll finally make contact with ET.
The best part is, if none of that happens you can spend at LEAST another 4 years blaming the Republicans instead of actually doing something to make the world a better place!
And why did Barney Frank tell the American public all was well with Fannie and Freddie, his hack friends? Because they all were in his pocket…. Hey Norman, go back to moonbatville.
If you research the mortgage mess (not relying on major newspapers or TV news) you will see that government started the mess and continues to create a mess. Congress insisted that banks loan money to individuals of questionable ability to repay the loans (Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were the main forces behind this). Congress threatened to restrict the banks activities if the loans were not made. In order to make loans to these people “creative financing” (i.e- ARM’s, interest only payments, etc.) was needed. People who should never have gotten loans received them. Fannie & Freddie bought up the loans creating a market for them and encouraging more of these loans to be made. Shockingly, after the initial few years of low payments “adjusted” to the actual payment it would take to pay off the loan these people couldn’t pay up. Thus, defaults, thus more housing on the market, thus decreasing home values, thus can’t refinance, etc. Government jumps in again and this time give $700 billion away (if you believe they are investing the money in these companies you likely believe that they also have your social security money safely stashed away in an account with your name on it). Oh, that’s $700 billion of our money which they don’t have so the bill should be coming to each of us in the next couple years.
They’ve all headed to the trough….it’s disgusting!!
Yeah, yeah, yeah Norman…
and it was Obama who pressured Freddi and Fannie to back more “risky” loans in his community action days (which I think is a euphamism for “give free stuff to people”).
When McCain and Bush wanted to move to put some additional oversight on Fannie and Freddie it was Congressional Democrats (including Pelosi and Obama) who blocked those efforts because they couldn’t risk affecting their constituent base of the “down-trodden”.
Obama won because of a very unpopular president (much of which was caused by media bias and war weariness) as well as the media’s absolute love affair with Obama – the man could do no wrong and every dump he took was the most glorious dump ever. Biden had as many gaffs as Palin but noone mentioned them, if Palin broke wind the Washinton Post ran stories how she was adding to greenhouse gas emissions.
Congrats that your candidate won, I’m not saying he’s not my president, I pray that his term will be good for America. But don’t fall into the stupid belief that he’s some kind of Messiah who’s going to fix everything with the stoke of his magical pen.
Funny you should mention a tax payor revolt……didn’t we have one in 1776??
And didn’t a document called the Declaration of Independence establish that when Government does not serve the People it is the right/duty of the People to change that Government??
Hmmmmmmmmmm…..
I agree , however i wont say he is My President until he proves he is good for the country. Proof is always in the performance. The rest means nothing. Now at least he is inheriting a problem he helped cause. hope he had a fix for this planned prior to the election besides raising taxes. People who could not pay then wont be able to pay years from now. Some thngs never change and dont worry Obama already knows that. he just used what he had to use to get into the white house. Now the rest is up to him. if he doesnt perform hell be ousted like all other Presidnets. The people simply wont stand for non performance. Look what happened to Bush.
How far HIG has fallen. This is a last gasp for them to remain solvent. A shame as they are a pretty well run company that treats their employees fairly. They are the best employer (agency or company) that I had in my 15 years in the insurance industry.
Back in 2004 I met Ramani Ayer at a company meeting. I asked him what plans the company was making for their 200th anniversary in 2010. He said something like “we just want to make it that far” and got a big laugh from the crowd.
Now there is the very real prospect they will be gone in a few months. Amazing. CNA, for over a decade on a shaky financial roller coaster, is still alive. Travelers/St Paul combined, confused the heck out of their agents but is surviving. Chubb appearing to do ok, as expected. If you would have told me two years ago that Cincy would be worth 2.5x HIG I’d have laughed in your face. Now they are laughing.
Hartford always had the best financials and the conservative operating philosophy, diversified their risk well and had a good mix between life & P/C. They avoided getting involved in much in the way of mortgage backed securities (I remember a company memo saying this when I was still there) but got dragged down in the whole credit default swap pile of crap.
And that is what sucks: the company still runs well but their investments have hosed them, with the failure of AIG leading the way.
I’m glad I’m out of the financial services industry. It appears that no matter who I might work for they are merely a few months away from a few bad decisions blowing up centuries of work.
Nathaniel Terry is weeping.
Beg to differ, I disagree with your take on Hartford’s problems. I left there in May of this year and I can assure you that in Middle Market we were not underpricing business. It was rare that we won on price and we had to quote a pretty large # of accounts to be able to write new business.
Select Customer, however, might be a different story. I know their pricing there seemed low but they have been running a combined ratio in the 80’s for years in small commercial. Hartford’s small business segment has basically been a money factory for them for the better part of a decade.
Hartford and low pricing usually don’t go together. In fact if I heard that certain companies were being asked to quote (Cincy, CNA, many regionals) I’d usually decline to quote as I knew my opportunity was limited.
It is absolutely outrageous to allow Hartford to buy a S&L in order to jump on the bailout bandwagon. Perhaps if they had not been underpricing business for the past three year, they would have been closer to an underwriting profit at least.I guess this is their way of avoiding Federal oversight of their insurance operation. Sad. I lost all respect for Hartford upon reading this article. They deserve what they get.
You right-wingers advocating armed rebellion need to wake up, or grow up, or both.
If Mr Wacko you are referring to me, how do you know that I even have a ‘wing’?? In addition, who used the term ‘armed rebellion’? Fortunately, unlike 1776, we are “armed” with less deadly means of enacting change. The ‘point of a gun’ would not be an option in our current culture. However, becoming politically active and thinking outside the Democratic/Republican box may be where answers lay. Clearly neither major party has our best interests at heart and Management of many US corporations across the country and across industries has been useless in providing long term growth/profit.
Got a problem with that, Wacko??
Does this mean that Hartford Retirement accounts are in jepordary? Should I be worried????