Global Markets Fear Disaster If AIG Is Allowed to Fail

By and | March 2, 2009

  • March 2, 2009 at 12:18 pm
    anon says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    So American taxpayers have to keep shoveling money into a pit because European banks might take a hit if AIG goes under? I’m sorry, I don’t buy the argument that we have no choice but to keep giving AIG taxpayer dollars…it seems like everybody knows a failure is inevitable, let’s just get it over with withou throwing good money after bad.

  • March 2, 2009 at 12:31 pm
    One says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    YEs we will all be paying for the BAD gross mistakes made by CORPERATE greed for years and decades this is the biggest heist the american people have ever witnessed and our govt has allowed it to protect what is left of captiolism………….in the end it will break.

  • March 2, 2009 at 12:45 pm
    Marie says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    When the media refers to AIG Insurance, it’s a major misnomer as the insurance divisions are a part of AIG, but have always been and continue to be profitable and stable. The approriate reference should be simply AIG. It’s financial services divisions are the ones who put AIG in a tailspin, led by some jerkoff AIG executive in France who was personally responsible for a major piece of this problem.

  • March 2, 2009 at 1:06 am
    Earl says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    If world economies are at stake, why are we the only ones stupid enough to finance them?

  • March 2, 2009 at 1:10 am
    Nugget says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I’ve noticed that most of the people who complain online about corporate “greed”, capitalism, or conservatives can never spell or put coherent sentences together- perhaps an indicator of the intelligence level attracted by the socialist-leaning political groups.

  • March 2, 2009 at 1:21 am
    Bernie says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    If this is a global issue why is the USA the only country bailing out AIG ? Are there other countries involved is the bailout also if not why not ?

  • March 2, 2009 at 1:24 am
    Joe Mama says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Watch it Bernie…you’ll anger China with your comments.

  • March 2, 2009 at 2:29 am
    cmc,jr says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    In fairness to IJ bloggers and their inability to put sentences together and spell words correctly: The so called smartest guys in the world can’t string the finances of this world together very well either; and after all, no one is submitting term papers. They’re just wasting their employers time under the guise of doing insurance work………

  • March 2, 2009 at 3:00 am
    Mike says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    Yea also cmc, this is not a blog, and writing in the comments section of an article does not make you a blogger.

  • March 2, 2009 at 4:49 am
    ER says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I agree with you anon. It’s beginning to sound like Europe owns the taxpayers. Let’s all wave our little white flags. Europe is taking over the US like a thief in the night, quietly and methodically. Let’s pour taxpayer money into AIG until no American has a penny left to his/her name. It’s a slippery slope.

  • March 3, 2009 at 11:25 am
    VC says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    It’s time to look at the AIG situation honestly. Pure and simple , a colossal failure of regulation, or stated another way, a prime example of deregulation at work. From everything that has been reported, AIG’s big troubles — its sales of a staggering $450 billion dollars of credit default swaps and other misunderstood derivatives from its London offices – was just another form of insurance. In the AIG deal , the customer(banks) paid a premium to a company (AIG ) to cover a risk(default on sub-prime mortgages), and AIG promised to pay the customer in the event the risk occurred. Isn’t that the classic definition of insurance?

    As insurance, these AIG transactions should have been reviewed and regulated. Instead, the wordsmiths defined this as some kind of obscure corporate obligation, not insurance, to avoid oversight. So, not one knowledgeable regulator was watching to see if AIG put aside sufficient reserves to cover this risk. When the claims came in, AIG didn’t have the reserves and couldn’t meet its obligations. This chilling revelation contributed mightily to the credit freeze among financial institutions and consumers.

    We are now up to $150 billion in bailout to AIG, and the US government is contemplating giving another $30 billion or more of taxpayer dollars to AIG to prop them up. What happened with AIG is a prime example of why the current US state by state nonuniform insurance regulatory system is not suited for the 21st century. These were international transactions and needed qualified federal oversight. With limited jurisdiction and limited staff, a state could not possibly have properly reviewed , provided oversight, or enforced these transactions.

    If anything, the AIG situation is a poster child- Exhibit A- for the need to scrap the state regulatory system, and create much-needed federal regulation and oversight of the insurance industry, through a uniform federal insurance law applicable in all states, and able to act internationally. Maybe then we will be able to avoid another bailout to a “too large to fail” company, which has put all of us into a tailspin. Once we pull out of this (and we will), we ought to set the right rules and enforce them. Then we will be on the road to restoring confidence in the insurance industry. It can be done.

  • March 5, 2009 at 2:42 am
    Lauren says:
    Like or Dislike:
    Thumb up 0
    Thumb down 0

    I really appreciate your concise explanation of what happened with AIG. Too bad you can’t be on the “committee” that is overseeing this bailout.

    I also agree with Bernie that the world markets should contribute to any additional bail out money. Why should US shoulder this alone?



Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*