For the past two decades, Democrats have specialized in insulating financial giants from the consequences of their own high-risk bets. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs alone have been rescued from their risky bets by unwitting taxpayers four times in the last 15 years.
Bankers get all the profits, glory and bonuses when their flimflam bets pay off, but the taxpayers foot the bill when Wall Street firms’ bets go bad on — to name just three examples — Mexican bonds (1995), Thai, Indonesian and South Korean bonds (1997), and Russian bonds (1998).
This ain’t the first time we’ve been to this rodeo.
No one will think O Bum a is dense in the head untill he give all our tax money to those without jobs and China.
Best advice O Buma supporters give out, quit your job and stick your hand out. When UnEmployment hits 100%, he will start to think there is a problem. Then move to China.
This is a typical political ploy to shift the blame from those truly responsible to those that are easy targets. The AIG financial problems did not stem from the insurance operations but the investment department of the holding company. The bonuses were negotiated before the bail out and even agreed by the politicians once they got involved. But once the news media heard of the bonuses, they pitched a fit and the politicians then pointed the finger at AIG not at themselves. Even after agreeing to take a lesser amount the insurance staff is being drawn and quartered even though they EARNED the bonuses. The real culprits are the politicians and the bureaucrats that have screwed this country up totally. Vote them out!
This is a bankrupt company. Please would someone place this company into liquidation. There is no reason why it cannot be put into recievership by the Feds. Then Obama could try his hand at capitalism. By the way, the first time in his life.
I am feeling sick to my stomach and my blood pressure is shooting up from anger and frustration.
Somehow, this bank fee will tricle down to you and me paying for it and why in the hell are those AIG employees getting bonuses when they took the US economy to the ground. Grrrr!
If AIG is allowed to go bankrupt it will destroy not only 1,000’s if jobs but also the 401K’s of senior citizens in Florida and Scottsdale.
If they are “Getting Bonuses” Maybe – JUST maybe – they EARNED it becuase these are the most profitable divisions creating the money that went to repay tarp.
Someone has t make money at AIG – and earn a bonus in doing so.
The adminitration past & present knew that by bailing out AIG they were bailing out the banks. Let’s follow the money and see where most of the payouts under AIG’s past 18 months went.
The admintration had to bailout AIG or the banks would have failed and then we all would have learned what the great deprsion was really like.
I wonder where the current admintration people who over see the AIG bailout worked in the past? Hummm.
Why not withhold the payment of all SEC managers and their salaries since 2006?
After all – they completely ignored multiple warning about Bernie Madoff – and therefore participated negligently in the embezzlement of billins of dollars of retirement savings.
Isn’t that also worth refusing payment of salaries? That’s more eggregious than bonuses for someone that did their job.
“If AIG is allowed to go bankrupt it will destroy not only 1,000’s if jobs but also the 401K’s of senior citizens in Florida and Scottsdale.”
now, remember 401k’s, everyone that has one could have been affected, but you are responsible for putting the allocations correctly to think you have money set aside for your retirement. first of all, why do you think only florida and scottsdale are the only folks with a 401k? LOL! you need to get your head out of the sand (or beach). so what if they go bankrupt?! if the automakes did and come back to life, did they not have thousands of workers? so big difference… what makes a difference is that the gov’t (doesn’t matter whom or what because it’s not the gov’t job to bail out AIG, they had just bad management) should have not bailed this company out with our tax dollars. that money could have been spent elsewhere. now, think about things, how many bailouts has AIG recieved, how many times did we get upset over their so-called retreats, how many times have we gotten upset when we hear about the payouts and then the so-called paybacks to other banks, how many times have we seen many facets of aig move to sell or change names? who is getting any benefit of this? who’s paying the czar the money for handling this affair? we are paying tooo much and then the gov’t would like us to pay our taxes as well! i’m sorry, you borrowed my money to aig and then expect them to pay w/interest. how about you expect them to pay the gov’t spending for the year and not get any money from me for the next year or so. afterall, i am not getting any dividend for own shares in this company. (wonder how many congressman are?) i think — we need to just replace congress with a new thought process because our congress is old! they are not moving w/progress. it was not the gov’t fault for those decisions that this company made and it failed!
It would appear that most who suggest that AIG should have gone bankrupt do not know the laws. All they would have done is file under chapter 11 reorganization, close out the loosing finacnial products division,including all of the contracts not insurance policies, default on paying those claims which went to the banks and then emerge healthy. Only all of the banks that had paid claims for would have themselves had to close after the staggering loses.
I checked with the D.O.I in NY and this would have been an approved viable plan under their guidelines. No money would need to be borrowed, the banks would have failed and we would in a mess the likes of which have not been seen before
It’s easy to say go bankrupt, but you need to know the results first.
Amazing, isn’t it what a little investigation and a short call to the D.O.I can do.
You never followed the paper and money trail. Take the time and see what cliams were paid to who for what amount of money.
It all goes back to the gov’t (current & prior admins) who deregulated banks. Who ever heard of 100% finance, sub-prime. Then some brillant idea to write coverage for these wonder instruments banking on no one will loose a home or the housing market will go down south. These all had approval from gov’t regulators.
If you want to see who really got what start to dig into the finacials. You can also get some great info from the Dept. of Insurnace.
Take the time and what you will learn will scare the hell out of you. Gov’t screws up and then they do what ever they can to cover up their errors and put the blame on someone else. Geitner is one of the masters of the plan.
Timmy needs to shut up and enjoy the wealth he’s obviously never earned. What a cylindrical object he is.
Let me get this straight. The Government took over AIG to save us all. We became owners of this company with promises of profits back to our Treasury when the loans were paid with interest. We, the government, as part owners had to approve the bonuses. But, when the light of day shone on the approvals, we meld into finger pointing donkey’s.
Timmy has a plan to fix all this mess if we’d just pass Obama’s tax plan to pinpoint an industry because of govermnent’s screwup after screwup after screwup. That just takes the proverbial cake.
Maybe if somebody could just tell Timmy what he just said in Chinese. Then, maybe, he’d have a chance at undertanding how foolish he sounds. Probably not.
If there is anything outrageous about this entire AIG fiasco, it is that the US government did not let AIG fail. A qualified receiver could have handled the “too big to fail” issues with counterparties much more effectively with the power to break contracts and negotiate settlements inherent with a receiver. Instead, we got politicians who do not understand the insurance markets throwing billions of dollars at a problem with no control over how the money is being spent…. and then complaining about how the people they left in charge – the ones who caused the problems to begin with – aren’t being responsible. Go figure.
As a side note, business will have little motivation to change its ways unless there is a real consequence for failure. In this case, management, employees, and even the stockholders have been reasonably protected when in reality, they deserved to be obliterated. Government can and should provide equitable resolutions to company failures. It’s called bankruptcy!
First of all, the banking condition was not created overnight. The “banking problem” began in the administration of Old Jimmy. His pre-Obama approach to economics let the cat out of the bag, then the current middle managers of economics and political sciences (read Hillary’s crowd) finagled their way into power, after of course the thinks tanks of Reagon drug his initiatives astry, allowing Sr Bush to stumble down an ill marked path with little insight. All the while these administrations were the only branch of government that was held responsible. I look deeper and see when the Reids, Murrys, Pelosies and Cnatvotes were actually in power positions to rape our Constitutional mandates to provide competent elected officials.
In addition…let’s keep partisan politics out of this discussion. Bush vs President Obama. These AIG bonuses were outrageous bottom line no matter who was sitting in the White House. Deregulation of the banking industry was a partial catalyst for this mess + old fashioned greed & avarice. We tax payers are footing the bill for this finacial fiasco no matter how you slice & dice it.
Since all politicians are crooked and only watching out for themselves, there’s only one thing left for us to do. Fix this sinking ship, which as I stated probably won’t happen in the next few years, or help it go down faster. Let’s sink it, then all of our money will be worthless, the rich and the politicians will have some very pretty toilet paper, and we can go back to farming. All of a sudden the farmers move to the top and the politicians move to the bottom of the food/survival chain. Then Iraq can come in and help us start over with our constitution again and maybe this time we’ll get it right! OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT SECOND TERM!!!!!!
Forget politicians and forget the banks. Sure, they are to blame for many things. But this one is on AIG.
Banks were enabled to utilize stupid loaning practices because AIG was willing to ‘insure’ them from massive foreclosure scenarios. AIG knowingly took on this risk. Their models suggested that there would never be such a financial meltdown and AIG would simply print profits from these transactions. Their assessment of that risk was flawed and they ultimately made the wrong bet.
The financial meltdown was going to trigger the ‘insurance’ AIG offered. AIG would not have enough money to pay the ‘claims.’ So, the government stepped in to bail out AIG.
The problem is the govenment could have just as easily ‘bailed out’ the banks directly for their ‘claims.’ Then they could have liquidated AIG to get most of the money back. Why save a company that made such poor bets and enabled the entire mess from happening? Then the government could have taxed the banks for the remaining balance ($ paid to the banks, less the $ raised from liquidating AIG).
Instead, we AIG has to be bailed out multiple times. We have to see/hear about 4 different AIG CEO’s coming in and ultimately giving up. We have to pay AIG executives bonuses that nobody could really justify. The money just keeps pouring out of American citizens’ pockets and into this corporate/political blackhole.
But, don’t worry, Chartis will be spun off and they will operate independently and all of us agents (and our customers) will be fine. No, wait. A good portion of Chartis’ reserves are actually comprised of other AIG companies that can’t be sold, or will be sold for fractions of their total worth. That dilutes their claims reserves and they will likely lose their ratings.
But wait, this Chartis idea isn’t actually anything at all. The latest CEO has decided that they don’t want to sell some or all of Chartis and wants to keep them as a primary AIG holding.
My god, does anyone really think this company is going to recover and get back to ‘normal’??? Nobody running this show knows how to conclude this horror show.
What ever happened to the Free Market Economy that allowed natural market forces to squeeze out the bad and let the good survive? Why is the Govt involved in bailing out bad management in big business anyways? Why are they not bailing out bad management in small business? How about good management in small business that is suffering due to the bad decisions made by big business / bad management?
Being from Illinois (The Most Crooked State in the Nation), Cook County, the most crooked county in the most crooked state in the nation, I can not understand why anyone would have voted for OBuma when he cut his political teeth in the most crooked county in the the most crooked state.
Now we have an Illinois (the most crooked state in the nation) politician running the country, selling our soul to the Chinease. Then we sit around feeling the pain of the President who came from the most crooked county in the most crooked state and wonder why things are as they are?
I do not mean to imply or state that OBuma was part of the Chicago Political Machine. He did have ties to Tony Rezco.
Who in their right mind would vote any politician from Illinois into any office any where? A Dairy Farmer from Wisconsin could do a better job running Illinois then anyone currently in office.
See the news story about the Democrat that won the LT Govoner nomination in Illinois? He appears to be on track to the White House.
There is much blame that needs to be placeds on both political parties. The GOP is as much to blame as the Democrats. Selling treasury bonds to the Chinese to finance two wars? Didn’t we raise taxes in WWII and the Korean Conflict and The war in Vietnam? You don’t go to war on borrowed money. One would think that would be common sense. Oops, I forgot, the politicans, lobbysits and other special interests have no common sense! We need to clean house, get rid of career politicians, lobbyists, pac’s and start having term limits limited to 2 three year terms, outlaw lobbyists and pac’s. Made the supreme court justices retire at age 70. No retirement for elected officials, (congress and the president). Put more teeth into financial regulation and dirivitives. Maybe, just maybe, we could get out of this mess. But, that is only wishful thinking, as most of the voters are complacent and don’t give a damn. This country is being raped by the greedy!
I agree with you, Frosty. My point is that Wall Street fat cats are more often aligned (in the media) with Republicans than Democrats. The irony is palpable. But, as you state, the bottom line is that the electorate wields the real power if only they chose to participate in the process in an informed manner. The ignorant disinterested electorate scares me more than the worst politician.
I totally agree that there is blame that needs to be placeded on both political parties. The GOP is as much to blame as the Democrats. It is ridiculous for the guillible shortsighted citizens of the USA to be swayed by the garbage spouting TV pundits seeking to blame EVERYTHING on President Obama. If you do not like him, fine, but address the issues which existed far before he took office. Obama stepped into a existing quagmire which cannot and will not be remedied overnight.
But why doesn’t anyone else wonder why AIG is getting all of the press about TARP repayment and The Hartford has had NONE???? Something smells fishy…don’t ya’ll think????
Well, there’s no doubt about blame on both sides of the aisle. These are all pretty good steps to take.
I’m not sure that I care if the President continues to get retirement, but Congress is quite another thing. Congressional positions were not expected to be career ends by our forefathers. By definition, a representative is not very representative if they don’t have to go back into the real world they create with their various laws and regulations. Let them go back and deal in the real world with the end results of their actions, and I think you WOULD see a different mindset in those halls.
I do think a President, after 8 years of the weight of the world on his/her shoulders, should deserve a perk at the end, though.
hahahahaha Oh, Janice….. very funny. The old “I inherited this mess” line. hahahahaha Yeah, and the dog ate my homework. Let’s all hold Bush responsible for not predicting a major terrorist attack 9 months into his Presidency but give Obama a pass for tripling the deficit. You’re hilarious. Every President inherits SOME problem(s) from the prior administration. Obama’s been there for a year. Think about what would happen to you in ANY job if after a year of doing it you still blamed the person who had the position before you. Think Donald Trump on this….. wait for it….. YOU’RE FIRED!
Brokette, Your response is a perfect example of what I was speaking to. I didn’t blame Bush. I never mentioned his name. You introduced him into this dialogue. I don’t indulge in the blame game as it is pointless and non productive.
I spoke to the fact that there is responsibility for BOTH parties for this financial meltdown. Of course with your perspective on President Obama clouding your vision you must have missed that point as raised.
Clearly no sitting President is expected to resolve the America’s problems in one year. Perhaps that is why we elect them for 4 year terms to remain constitutionally correct if nothing else.
(Are you personally trully pleased with the action & results of the previous 8 years?) Congress is complicit in the problems as well as in blocking the potential solutions with partisan politics.
Additionally, to answer your question, No I would not be FIRED after one year for not resolving complex issues that I inherited. I’m applauded and appreciated for identifying the problem and diligently working to resolve them.
JK, you must be a government employee or another politician then. Ha!
Well, you are correct in that you didn’t have a literal Bush blame in your post, but it was clearly there. Don’t jump all over Brokette because she was able to read what you were really saying.
You talk about all the pundits on TV that are blaming Obama. Well, where are they? Unless you go to Fox, which would be blasphemy if you’re a Democrat, you won’t hear hardly anything negative about this prez.
Look, both parties ARE to blame. But, I think most reasonable folks would say the current administration has the most skin in the game now. It’s been a year. He’s had a filibuster-proof Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House. So, anything they wanted to get accomplished, was easily done, were it not for their own incompetence.
Unlike the Republicans who also held a majority a few years ago, the Democrats made no efforts towards bipartisanship. Say what you want about Bush, but he was somebody that would work and reach out to Democrats. Whether that was a plus or a minus, depends on who you’re polling.
I don’t believe Bush ever had a Republican House and Senate. So, yes I think it’s quite credible to infer that most of the current financial meltdown and continued sluggishness was overseen and flourished due to Democratic politicians’ policies. And, it’s absolutely a valid position that Obama has done little, to nothing, to do anything besides drive our nation deeper into debt, pay off cronies, and, although it was hard to find any solid campaign promises in his candidacy because nearly all talk was about Hope and Change in an effort to appeal to various interpretation of what that meant (brilliant, by the way), he has failed to live up to nearly every campaign promise that he made. Where is the transparency in Government? Where is the end of partisan polarization? Why didn’t he keep lobbyists out of the White House and why hasn’t he put an end to pork-barrel spending attached to bills?
Having said that, there are plenty of examples of Republican fiascos as well. Lifetime politicians are nothing but trouble, no matter what side of the isle.
Democrat or Republican, blame the goof balls that voted in an Illinois Politician.
Didn’t Busch send out checks directly to the tax payer in 2007?
Take the AIG $$ and divide it by the nuber of people that were not in default, current with Credit Cards, in good tax standing (the fiscally resposible people)it would probably total over $100K per household.
Dont send it to the people sitting on their dead A@# waiting for the next OBuma give a way. Had I got a check for over $100K, I would have cleared my mortgage freeing up $$ for the bank to handle their bad debt they so ignorantly took on.
Instead the economy is in shambles, we are in debt to China while they spread their computer virus and sell us poisonous drywall.
For all you people outside Illinois, you are begining to see what Illinois Politics are all about. People are so ignorant about Illinois Politics, I’ll lay down money that idiot gets elected again. Democrat or Republican, I do not care, just not from Illinois!
I will reiterate for the third and final time BOTH Parties are complicit in this financial fiasco along with Congress. You can read into my statements whatever you wish.
I don’t watch TV frequently because the programming speaks to the lowest common denominator and insults the intelligence 85% of the time.
For the record I’ve been in the Insurance Industry for 25+ years and am neither a Republican nor Democrat. I vote led by my research and belief system for whom I anticipate will be the best representative for the position. One year tenure is not the measure of a President.
For the past two decades, Democrats have specialized in insulating financial giants from the consequences of their own high-risk bets. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs alone have been rescued from their risky bets by unwitting taxpayers four times in the last 15 years.
Bankers get all the profits, glory and bonuses when their flimflam bets pay off, but the taxpayers foot the bill when Wall Street firms’ bets go bad on — to name just three examples — Mexican bonds (1995), Thai, Indonesian and South Korean bonds (1997), and Russian bonds (1998).
This ain’t the first time we’ve been to this rodeo.
Way to go Timmy, pass the buck back to the consume for your stupidity. If the bets had paid off no one would care and everything is fine.
Government makes a bad bet and we get hit with tax increase, banks get hit with fees to pass on to consumer and we get triple dip recession.
Unbelievable.
When will people stop saying Obama is smart and brilliant???????
He only looks “smart” when he has his teleprompter; ever seen him without it.
Looks more like a bumbling idiot.
No one will think O Bum a is dense in the head untill he give all our tax money to those without jobs and China.
Best advice O Buma supporters give out, quit your job and stick your hand out. When UnEmployment hits 100%, he will start to think there is a problem. Then move to China.
This is a typical political ploy to shift the blame from those truly responsible to those that are easy targets. The AIG financial problems did not stem from the insurance operations but the investment department of the holding company. The bonuses were negotiated before the bail out and even agreed by the politicians once they got involved. But once the news media heard of the bonuses, they pitched a fit and the politicians then pointed the finger at AIG not at themselves. Even after agreeing to take a lesser amount the insurance staff is being drawn and quartered even though they EARNED the bonuses. The real culprits are the politicians and the bureaucrats that have screwed this country up totally. Vote them out!
This is a bankrupt company. Please would someone place this company into liquidation. There is no reason why it cannot be put into recievership by the Feds. Then Obama could try his hand at capitalism. By the way, the first time in his life.
I am feeling sick to my stomach and my blood pressure is shooting up from anger and frustration.
Somehow, this bank fee will tricle down to you and me paying for it and why in the hell are those AIG employees getting bonuses when they took the US economy to the ground. Grrrr!
c’mon…SOMEONE out there has to point out “how bad things were under Bush”…
If AIG is allowed to go bankrupt it will destroy not only 1,000’s if jobs but also the 401K’s of senior citizens in Florida and Scottsdale.
If they are “Getting Bonuses” Maybe – JUST maybe – they EARNED it becuase these are the most profitable divisions creating the money that went to repay tarp.
Someone has t make money at AIG – and earn a bonus in doing so.
The adminitration past & present knew that by bailing out AIG they were bailing out the banks. Let’s follow the money and see where most of the payouts under AIG’s past 18 months went.
The admintration had to bailout AIG or the banks would have failed and then we all would have learned what the great deprsion was really like.
I wonder where the current admintration people who over see the AIG bailout worked in the past? Hummm.
Why not withhold the payment of all SEC managers and their salaries since 2006?
After all – they completely ignored multiple warning about Bernie Madoff – and therefore participated negligently in the embezzlement of billins of dollars of retirement savings.
Isn’t that also worth refusing payment of salaries? That’s more eggregious than bonuses for someone that did their job.
“If AIG is allowed to go bankrupt it will destroy not only 1,000’s if jobs but also the 401K’s of senior citizens in Florida and Scottsdale.”
now, remember 401k’s, everyone that has one could have been affected, but you are responsible for putting the allocations correctly to think you have money set aside for your retirement. first of all, why do you think only florida and scottsdale are the only folks with a 401k? LOL! you need to get your head out of the sand (or beach). so what if they go bankrupt?! if the automakes did and come back to life, did they not have thousands of workers? so big difference… what makes a difference is that the gov’t (doesn’t matter whom or what because it’s not the gov’t job to bail out AIG, they had just bad management) should have not bailed this company out with our tax dollars. that money could have been spent elsewhere. now, think about things, how many bailouts has AIG recieved, how many times did we get upset over their so-called retreats, how many times have we gotten upset when we hear about the payouts and then the so-called paybacks to other banks, how many times have we seen many facets of aig move to sell or change names? who is getting any benefit of this? who’s paying the czar the money for handling this affair? we are paying tooo much and then the gov’t would like us to pay our taxes as well! i’m sorry, you borrowed my money to aig and then expect them to pay w/interest. how about you expect them to pay the gov’t spending for the year and not get any money from me for the next year or so. afterall, i am not getting any dividend for own shares in this company. (wonder how many congressman are?) i think — we need to just replace congress with a new thought process because our congress is old! they are not moving w/progress. it was not the gov’t fault for those decisions that this company made and it failed!
It would appear that most who suggest that AIG should have gone bankrupt do not know the laws. All they would have done is file under chapter 11 reorganization, close out the loosing finacnial products division,including all of the contracts not insurance policies, default on paying those claims which went to the banks and then emerge healthy. Only all of the banks that had paid claims for would have themselves had to close after the staggering loses.
I checked with the D.O.I in NY and this would have been an approved viable plan under their guidelines. No money would need to be borrowed, the banks would have failed and we would in a mess the likes of which have not been seen before
It’s easy to say go bankrupt, but you need to know the results first.
Amazing, isn’t it what a little investigation and a short call to the D.O.I can do.
You never followed the paper and money trail. Take the time and see what cliams were paid to who for what amount of money.
It all goes back to the gov’t (current & prior admins) who deregulated banks. Who ever heard of 100% finance, sub-prime. Then some brillant idea to write coverage for these wonder instruments banking on no one will loose a home or the housing market will go down south. These all had approval from gov’t regulators.
If you want to see who really got what start to dig into the finacials. You can also get some great info from the Dept. of Insurnace.
Take the time and what you will learn will scare the hell out of you. Gov’t screws up and then they do what ever they can to cover up their errors and put the blame on someone else. Geitner is one of the masters of the plan.
Aaaaah!
Timmy needs to shut up and enjoy the wealth he’s obviously never earned. What a cylindrical object he is.
Let me get this straight. The Government took over AIG to save us all. We became owners of this company with promises of profits back to our Treasury when the loans were paid with interest. We, the government, as part owners had to approve the bonuses. But, when the light of day shone on the approvals, we meld into finger pointing donkey’s.
Timmy has a plan to fix all this mess if we’d just pass Obama’s tax plan to pinpoint an industry because of govermnent’s screwup after screwup after screwup. That just takes the proverbial cake.
Maybe if somebody could just tell Timmy what he just said in Chinese. Then, maybe, he’d have a chance at undertanding how foolish he sounds. Probably not.
I’m out.
If there is anything outrageous about this entire AIG fiasco, it is that the US government did not let AIG fail. A qualified receiver could have handled the “too big to fail” issues with counterparties much more effectively with the power to break contracts and negotiate settlements inherent with a receiver. Instead, we got politicians who do not understand the insurance markets throwing billions of dollars at a problem with no control over how the money is being spent…. and then complaining about how the people they left in charge – the ones who caused the problems to begin with – aren’t being responsible. Go figure.
As a side note, business will have little motivation to change its ways unless there is a real consequence for failure. In this case, management, employees, and even the stockholders have been reasonably protected when in reality, they deserved to be obliterated. Government can and should provide equitable resolutions to company failures. It’s called bankruptcy!
First of all, the banking condition was not created overnight. The “banking problem” began in the administration of Old Jimmy. His pre-Obama approach to economics let the cat out of the bag, then the current middle managers of economics and political sciences (read Hillary’s crowd) finagled their way into power, after of course the thinks tanks of Reagon drug his initiatives astry, allowing Sr Bush to stumble down an ill marked path with little insight. All the while these administrations were the only branch of government that was held responsible. I look deeper and see when the Reids, Murrys, Pelosies and Cnatvotes were actually in power positions to rape our Constitutional mandates to provide competent elected officials.
In addition…let’s keep partisan politics out of this discussion. Bush vs President Obama. These AIG bonuses were outrageous bottom line no matter who was sitting in the White House. Deregulation of the banking industry was a partial catalyst for this mess + old fashioned greed & avarice. We tax payers are footing the bill for this finacial fiasco no matter how you slice & dice it.
Since all politicians are crooked and only watching out for themselves, there’s only one thing left for us to do. Fix this sinking ship, which as I stated probably won’t happen in the next few years, or help it go down faster. Let’s sink it, then all of our money will be worthless, the rich and the politicians will have some very pretty toilet paper, and we can go back to farming. All of a sudden the farmers move to the top and the politicians move to the bottom of the food/survival chain. Then Iraq can come in and help us start over with our constitution again and maybe this time we’ll get it right! OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT SECOND TERM!!!!!!
Forget politicians and forget the banks. Sure, they are to blame for many things. But this one is on AIG.
Banks were enabled to utilize stupid loaning practices because AIG was willing to ‘insure’ them from massive foreclosure scenarios. AIG knowingly took on this risk. Their models suggested that there would never be such a financial meltdown and AIG would simply print profits from these transactions. Their assessment of that risk was flawed and they ultimately made the wrong bet.
The financial meltdown was going to trigger the ‘insurance’ AIG offered. AIG would not have enough money to pay the ‘claims.’ So, the government stepped in to bail out AIG.
The problem is the govenment could have just as easily ‘bailed out’ the banks directly for their ‘claims.’ Then they could have liquidated AIG to get most of the money back. Why save a company that made such poor bets and enabled the entire mess from happening? Then the government could have taxed the banks for the remaining balance ($ paid to the banks, less the $ raised from liquidating AIG).
Instead, we AIG has to be bailed out multiple times. We have to see/hear about 4 different AIG CEO’s coming in and ultimately giving up. We have to pay AIG executives bonuses that nobody could really justify. The money just keeps pouring out of American citizens’ pockets and into this corporate/political blackhole.
But, don’t worry, Chartis will be spun off and they will operate independently and all of us agents (and our customers) will be fine. No, wait. A good portion of Chartis’ reserves are actually comprised of other AIG companies that can’t be sold, or will be sold for fractions of their total worth. That dilutes their claims reserves and they will likely lose their ratings.
But wait, this Chartis idea isn’t actually anything at all. The latest CEO has decided that they don’t want to sell some or all of Chartis and wants to keep them as a primary AIG holding.
My god, does anyone really think this company is going to recover and get back to ‘normal’??? Nobody running this show knows how to conclude this horror show.
What a great country!!!
Now, that was a good post, Simpleton.
What ever happened to the Free Market Economy that allowed natural market forces to squeeze out the bad and let the good survive? Why is the Govt involved in bailing out bad management in big business anyways? Why are they not bailing out bad management in small business? How about good management in small business that is suffering due to the bad decisions made by big business / bad management?
Being from Illinois (The Most Crooked State in the Nation), Cook County, the most crooked county in the most crooked state in the nation, I can not understand why anyone would have voted for OBuma when he cut his political teeth in the most crooked county in the the most crooked state.
Now we have an Illinois (the most crooked state in the nation) politician running the country, selling our soul to the Chinease. Then we sit around feeling the pain of the President who came from the most crooked county in the most crooked state and wonder why things are as they are?
I do not mean to imply or state that OBuma was part of the Chicago Political Machine. He did have ties to Tony Rezco.
Who in their right mind would vote any politician from Illinois into any office any where? A Dairy Farmer from Wisconsin could do a better job running Illinois then anyone currently in office.
See the news story about the Democrat that won the LT Govoner nomination in Illinois? He appears to be on track to the White House.
…why isn’t anyone tracking The Hartford executive bonuses and payoffs????
There is much blame that needs to be placeds on both political parties. The GOP is as much to blame as the Democrats. Selling treasury bonds to the Chinese to finance two wars? Didn’t we raise taxes in WWII and the Korean Conflict and The war in Vietnam? You don’t go to war on borrowed money. One would think that would be common sense. Oops, I forgot, the politicans, lobbysits and other special interests have no common sense! We need to clean house, get rid of career politicians, lobbyists, pac’s and start having term limits limited to 2 three year terms, outlaw lobbyists and pac’s. Made the supreme court justices retire at age 70. No retirement for elected officials, (congress and the president). Put more teeth into financial regulation and dirivitives. Maybe, just maybe, we could get out of this mess. But, that is only wishful thinking, as most of the voters are complacent and don’t give a damn. This country is being raped by the greedy!
I agree with you, Frosty. My point is that Wall Street fat cats are more often aligned (in the media) with Republicans than Democrats. The irony is palpable. But, as you state, the bottom line is that the electorate wields the real power if only they chose to participate in the process in an informed manner. The ignorant disinterested electorate scares me more than the worst politician.
I totally agree that there is blame that needs to be placeded on both political parties. The GOP is as much to blame as the Democrats. It is ridiculous for the guillible shortsighted citizens of the USA to be swayed by the garbage spouting TV pundits seeking to blame EVERYTHING on President Obama. If you do not like him, fine, but address the issues which existed far before he took office. Obama stepped into a existing quagmire which cannot and will not be remedied overnight.
But why doesn’t anyone else wonder why AIG is getting all of the press about TARP repayment and The Hartford has had NONE???? Something smells fishy…don’t ya’ll think????
Well, there’s no doubt about blame on both sides of the aisle. These are all pretty good steps to take.
I’m not sure that I care if the President continues to get retirement, but Congress is quite another thing. Congressional positions were not expected to be career ends by our forefathers. By definition, a representative is not very representative if they don’t have to go back into the real world they create with their various laws and regulations. Let them go back and deal in the real world with the end results of their actions, and I think you WOULD see a different mindset in those halls.
I do think a President, after 8 years of the weight of the world on his/her shoulders, should deserve a perk at the end, though.
Everything else, I’m all in.
hahahahaha Oh, Janice….. very funny. The old “I inherited this mess” line. hahahahaha Yeah, and the dog ate my homework. Let’s all hold Bush responsible for not predicting a major terrorist attack 9 months into his Presidency but give Obama a pass for tripling the deficit. You’re hilarious. Every President inherits SOME problem(s) from the prior administration. Obama’s been there for a year. Think about what would happen to you in ANY job if after a year of doing it you still blamed the person who had the position before you. Think Donald Trump on this….. wait for it….. YOU’RE FIRED!
Brokette, Your response is a perfect example of what I was speaking to. I didn’t blame Bush. I never mentioned his name. You introduced him into this dialogue. I don’t indulge in the blame game as it is pointless and non productive.
I spoke to the fact that there is responsibility for BOTH parties for this financial meltdown. Of course with your perspective on President Obama clouding your vision you must have missed that point as raised.
Clearly no sitting President is expected to resolve the America’s problems in one year. Perhaps that is why we elect them for 4 year terms to remain constitutionally correct if nothing else.
(Are you personally trully pleased with the action & results of the previous 8 years?) Congress is complicit in the problems as well as in blocking the potential solutions with partisan politics.
Additionally, to answer your question, No I would not be FIRED after one year for not resolving complex issues that I inherited. I’m applauded and appreciated for identifying the problem and diligently working to resolve them.
JK, you must be a government employee or another politician then. Ha!
Well, you are correct in that you didn’t have a literal Bush blame in your post, but it was clearly there. Don’t jump all over Brokette because she was able to read what you were really saying.
You talk about all the pundits on TV that are blaming Obama. Well, where are they? Unless you go to Fox, which would be blasphemy if you’re a Democrat, you won’t hear hardly anything negative about this prez.
Look, both parties ARE to blame. But, I think most reasonable folks would say the current administration has the most skin in the game now. It’s been a year. He’s had a filibuster-proof Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House. So, anything they wanted to get accomplished, was easily done, were it not for their own incompetence.
Unlike the Republicans who also held a majority a few years ago, the Democrats made no efforts towards bipartisanship. Say what you want about Bush, but he was somebody that would work and reach out to Democrats. Whether that was a plus or a minus, depends on who you’re polling.
I don’t believe Bush ever had a Republican House and Senate. So, yes I think it’s quite credible to infer that most of the current financial meltdown and continued sluggishness was overseen and flourished due to Democratic politicians’ policies. And, it’s absolutely a valid position that Obama has done little, to nothing, to do anything besides drive our nation deeper into debt, pay off cronies, and, although it was hard to find any solid campaign promises in his candidacy because nearly all talk was about Hope and Change in an effort to appeal to various interpretation of what that meant (brilliant, by the way), he has failed to live up to nearly every campaign promise that he made. Where is the transparency in Government? Where is the end of partisan polarization? Why didn’t he keep lobbyists out of the White House and why hasn’t he put an end to pork-barrel spending attached to bills?
Having said that, there are plenty of examples of Republican fiascos as well. Lifetime politicians are nothing but trouble, no matter what side of the isle.
Peon Agent jumping into a cat fight.
Democrat or Republican, blame the goof balls that voted in an Illinois Politician.
Didn’t Busch send out checks directly to the tax payer in 2007?
Take the AIG $$ and divide it by the nuber of people that were not in default, current with Credit Cards, in good tax standing (the fiscally resposible people)it would probably total over $100K per household.
Dont send it to the people sitting on their dead A@# waiting for the next OBuma give a way. Had I got a check for over $100K, I would have cleared my mortgage freeing up $$ for the bank to handle their bad debt they so ignorantly took on.
Instead the economy is in shambles, we are in debt to China while they spread their computer virus and sell us poisonous drywall.
For all you people outside Illinois, you are begining to see what Illinois Politics are all about. People are so ignorant about Illinois Politics, I’ll lay down money that idiot gets elected again. Democrat or Republican, I do not care, just not from Illinois!
I will reiterate for the third and final time BOTH Parties are complicit in this financial fiasco along with Congress. You can read into my statements whatever you wish.
I don’t watch TV frequently because the programming speaks to the lowest common denominator and insults the intelligence 85% of the time.
For the record I’ve been in the Insurance Industry for 25+ years and am neither a Republican nor Democrat. I vote led by my research and belief system for whom I anticipate will be the best representative for the position. One year tenure is not the measure of a President.
Well, one year tenure could be the measure of a Presidency if the issue of a Birth Certificate were addressed.
Hahaaaa!
Ok, for the record, I’m not a birther. Read the subject line, and have a good weekend in spite of who’s in the office and the other seats.