2) AIG knowingly writes insurance without adequate reserves so that their executives could suck billions in bogus short-term gains out of the company
3) AIG of course collapses
4) The taxpayer picks up the losses, while AIG executives keep their ill-gotten gains
5) Nobody gets prosecuted, since people like AIG executives are above the law
What to do?
Well, we could track down all the AIG executives and kill them.
But hey, that would be medieval, or Chinese-like, and uncivil. So scratch that.
So instead they should be investigated for the fraud they committed, and then we should clawback all their ill-gotten gains, throw the guilty in jail, and set up a system to ensure we have adequate regulation and auditing in the future to make sure this type of obvious and disgusting ponzi scheme can't happen again. At least for a generation or two.
But of course, doing this would require Eric Holder, a coward, to do his f*cking job. And for Congress, the most corrupt institution in the land, to bite the hand of their masters.
I'm not holding my breath.
Revolution anyone?
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64 comments:
I just bought my first gun.
You may be right a revolution is coming. Everyone will soon be killing pinkos that believe because they are what Obama isn't they are entitle to take from those that earn.
THeir coming Keith - and being a liberal twick wonm't save you. Nothing is more racist than an American black man and all he sees is the color of you skin and the loot he can take from you.
Legitimate question here -- where the hell did all the federal money go? Who's on the receiving end of the cheques for more than $100 billion that AIG has gotten? Is it in AIG's accounts to shore up their reserve requirements? Are they paying it out to counterparties that AIG owes from CDS deals? Can anybody show me the money?
This was discussed on Monday's edition of the PBS Newshour, which airs on the TV channel here that shows foreign news programmes. Nobody knew the answer. The unimaginable amounts of money that have disappeared into the maw of who-knows-where gets me a lot more pissed off than the homedebtors who Santelli rants about.
The first option was better.
A couple of black swans like that and you can kiss Moral Hazard goodbye...
Keith,
Your talk of revolution is easy for someone sitting on another continent.
Dogcrap, racism isn't a question of degrees - you are or you aren't. And there are simply more racist whites than minorities, because minorities are the victims, thus less inclined to inflict hate on other people. You have everything mixed up, and need to take a chill pill before your prejudicial prophesy become self-fulfilling and/or you do something stupid. Of course you should protect yourself, but we're American's all, all in this together. Calm heads in difficult times. Calm heads.
Yo Keith,
Did you see that Hank Greenberg is now suing AIG (i.e. the taxpayers) for misleading him into buying more stock?
HI TOOLS!!!!
I THINK THEY HAVE TO HOLD THE MONEY FOR RESERVE REQUIREMENTS!!!!
IF THEY DO NOT HAVE THE RESERVES, THEN THEY WILL BE FORCED TO LIQUIDATE ASSETS AT DEPRESSED PRICES!!!!
BUT . . . . IT IS BULLSHIT THAT THESE GREEDY PIGS ARE NOT IN JAIL WITH ALL OF THEIR ILL-RECEIVED GAINS CONFISCATED!!!!
REMEMBER THE TECH BUBBLE?!?!?!?!
REMEMBER ALL OF THE SHAREHOLDER LAWSUITS FROM THE TECH BUBBLE?!?!?!?!?
ENRON?!?!?!?!?!
WORLDCOM?!?!?!?
TYCO!?!?!?!?!
ARTHUR ANDERSON?!?!?!?
WHY DID THEY ALL GO DOWN YET THESE OTHER PRICKS ARE GETTING OFF WITH THE CASH LAUGHING THEIR WAY TO TAHITI?!?!?!!?
FOR ONCE, I LIKE THE CHINESE ROUTE . . . THE $0.11 SOLUTION!!!!!
BANG!!!!
NO MORE PIGS!!!!
I AM STILL WAITING FOR THE DAY THAT I HEAR THAT CHARLES PRINCE FROM CITI WAS ABDUCTED BY THE SAUDIS!!!!
I'M OUT!!!!
TOOLS!!!!
DOLTS!!!!
DOPES!!!!
All of this is just absolutely disgusting. The media isn't doing their job as usual. They keep stating how all of this is "complex", "too big to fail", etc...
I am now getting pissed. We as a nation is in the same league as Nigeria! Can you believe it? This is just plain theft from those who work hard and play by the rules to those who don't!
We the tax payer is paying for what AIG should be doing as an insurer, but can't afford. F that. I could care less about the insurance holders or CDS's mofo's. F them all. Let them burn and crash down with AIG.
Messiah, the boy genius, and his "financial advisers":
1. (Bloomberg) -- Harvard’s interest costs are set to increase as much as $550 million over three decades because the U.S.’s wealthiest and oldest university took advice from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.
Earlier, those same Wall Street banks sold Harvard -- then led by Lawrence Summers, now an Obama administration adviser -- derivatives that soured.
2. (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which recorded its worst financial results ever in 2008, will cut manufacturing jobs and close facilities as the recession deepens.
It's so easy to make money during WWII, or during decades of bull markets, and then manipulating market direction just by opening your mouth. Hey, but they call you "financial genius" for that these days.
maybe a little off post but still about insurance companys...my health insurance company takes more than twice what i spend on food every month to cover me, and they do not take pay it fowards so the have enslaved and imprisioned me to an address each month, oh but now a days think of the convienance of letting them take money from your bank account .............and proper diet is a major health factor, and for more troubles those companys own politicians so expect more non restrainable expenses tied to our feet...........
Everything will be just fine, Suzanne researched it.
Guns are the new black. I have never owned a gun, but suddenly I feel the need to take a class, go to the range, buy a nice piece and join the NRA.
bend over and meet your new boss, aig.You just gave them 500 to run a crooked business.All the executives should give all their bonus money back and be arrested immediately.
Greenberg lost 2 billion in the shady deal.
Is geithner for real?He should be fired already.
did anyone catch WWE RAW last night?Idol is on tonight, sweet.
"Well, we could track down all the AIG executives and kill them."
I vote for this option, but add 'publicly and all tv and media must broadcast or we turn off their license.
Fuck it, were now living in socialist russia/us anyway aren't we? We might as well get SOMETHING for out tax revenues and flushing the future down the shitter.
AMERICA IS DEAD. Punish the Guilty.
Maybe we are just having an Ethics crisis, we have all been eviscerated of decency thru the want of money, houses and toys. It seems that we have pathological liers, psychopaths and perverts running the governments and corporations, so throw a Moral crisis in there too.
My hope is that this economic crisis caused by greed, mis-management and carelessness somehow shows us the evil of our ways and has such an effect to eventually turn things around, you know, return the confidence in the markets and retail and all that crap, whatever.
Nothing wrong with hope and change, as long as I get my kick-back, eh?
you forgot 6) AIG and former-AIG executives sue company (or rather the US taxpayers) for losses to their AIG stock portfolios.
It's a grand world!
charlottemom
Bukko – Credit Default Swaps. AIG is a bottomless pit. They wrote all this “insurance” to financial institutions who didn’t even own the asset they were insuring. Now those institutions are cashing in their “insurance policies” in the form of Credit Default Swaps. I know of one transaction where a FORIGN BANK just cashed ONE in for a few billion. That’s billion with a B.
But would "Revolution" be non- medieval, or non-Chinese-like, and non-uncivil?
Given the current mess the "civilized" American political and business "leaders" have got the world into, I am surprised that you are thinking anybody else on the planet as uncivilized?
We are on the verge of a Revolution, another 2 or 3 months of this and that will push everyone over the edge!
While revolution sounds good, it seems more likely that we will have riots instead, with the angry mob attacking those closest to them who happen to have a better house or car, and not the ones responsible for this mess, since they live far away in one of their many mansions.
And why not just kill those suckers? How about a deck of cards like Bush made up for the "bad Iraqis"? Who can put together a list of the 52 most responsible for this crime? Just an idea.
Great article on Obongo's Hope and "Keep the Change" Federal Budget:
The Last Picture Show
Man, we are seriously f*cked with these monkeys in charge. How can this not be the intentional bankrupting of the USA? There's no way these people can be this stupid.
NEWSFLASH!!!!!!
IMMELT ACKNOWLEDGES GE IMAGE HAS BEEN TARNISHED.
Really, ya think Sherlock???
Keith finally gets it. Mega-rich people in America are above the law.
revolution? i don't think china will allow that...
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0f8_1235673139
Legitimate question here -- where the hell did all the federal money go?
-------------------------------
if i understand it correctly, AIG entered into a lot of CDS (Credit Default Swaps) which is a fancy name for debt insurance. calling it CDS enabled them to avoid the regulators. The insurance regulators would have required the proper reserves to these debt insurance policies. some advance investors realized that AIG would blindly enter into these CDS and they took the smart side of these debt bets. it is these investors who are reaping billions from AIG. A lot of the tax payer AIG billions is a guarantee and not actual hard cash (yet, but it could be). So, technically, a good portion of the 200 billion or so of tax payer backstop has not actually gone into anyone's pockets but it could.
Who has profited?
AIG execs and those AIG employees who wouldn't have had a job if it wasn't for the "credit bubble".
The smart investors who entered into the other side of the CDS, but not all of them have had "pay days" yet.
Vote with a bullet.
Keith,
You need to rename this blog EconomyPANIC.
HousingPANIC has evolved to EconomyPANIC.
We cannot concern ourselves with rebuilding sh*t if we don't know the extent of the damage yet.
Read the topics, read the comments. This is PANIC man!
Keith,
You're forgetting one thing. Conservatives, neocons and Republicans want SMALL govt. The also want INEFFECTIVE govt.
Every day Rush is calling for Obama to fail.
So Republicans, since it doesn't look like Walmart is going to go out and start arresting bankers. Who do you want to do it?
You either want to build smart, effective govt., or you want chaos. Which do you want?
I've said many times to the "small govt." folks, have you looked at Mexico lately (or at any time)? They actually have "small govt.". Limited govt. usually means "no" govt.
It's amazing I have to keep repeating this truth.
There will be riots in this country on a mass scale - nothing can stop that now.
Everyday, we hear of one crook or another openly stealing from tax-payer's, and getting away with it - at most house arrest.
Meanwhile, the ignorant media continues to focus on housing prices dropping like a rock, while the bigger concern is millions more who will be out of work for years to come, at most we'll have a nation of under-employed people working like serfs to support the few elite.
One thing is for sure, the city, state and county governments are going to have some really nasty choices to make, choices they have never made, which will "upset the apple cart" for those who felt everyone else should pay except for them.
stop paying loans. would be nice to stop paying taxes too but that is criminalized.
"...where the hell did all the federal money go?..."
Excellent question; whether posed about Madeoff...
or writ much, MUCH larger.
"...Sometimes, it helps to step back and see the big picture...
...If you can get enough people to buy a home for no money down, you can buy their country for no money down..."
The housing bubble has reached it’s logical conclusion
"We're Sorry" -- Obama voters express their regrets
The drones Obama voters have begun sending me photos expressing their sorrow in voting for the Won.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/03/im-sorry-obama-voters-express-their.html
Good post, good perspective. Keep it up Keith, it may take a while but the rage will set in, and the riots will start, and we need folks like you to remind us who to go after.
This just in:
Bernnie Madoff wants to keep $62 million in assets AND his Penthouse. Can't make this stuff up can you?
It will be a great feather in your cap when society gathers together in sufficient numbers to force these a@@holes to give back the money. Nothing short of "give back the money" will do.
GT Charlie
Oh yeah AIG, aren't they that new insurance company GSE? I hear they have some issues that make Fannie and Freddie's problems look kind of tame. Obama had better put Franklin Raines on it right away. An experienced guy like him will get to the bottom of this crap and straighten things out.
Unkle Ben said today:
“If there is a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can’t think of one other than AIG,”
...Angry that he didn't get to spend more money.
You might want to check your facts on this one. Hank Greenberg built AIG up from nothing into the world's largest commercial P&C insurer. Greenberg was ousted by that scum Eliot Spitzer in 2005. It was AFTER Greenberg's departure that all the garbage CDS paper was written.
If Greenberg was still there, this would have never happened. Hank knew risk. He didn't build the world's preeminent insurance company without understanding risk.
Business as usual.
$700 billion bailout means that there was a $700 billion hole. Where did that $700 billion go to create that hole in the first place? Answer: Scummy "investors'" pockets. They needed your money to pay out the big jackpots.
Keith, I was traveling in the past few days and didn't read stuff on this blog. I am just catching up, and I am glad you finally saw Depression. This is something I have been saying for months now.
Also, I couldn't help noticing that you seem to think that the stock market is THE thing Obama must care about. I disagree. As long as people pay more attention to Wall Street than to their own family and life, America will be at the mercy of con artists and their ponzi schemes.
Honestly Keith, do you still have money in stocks? If you do, it's a shame, because you'd be saying one thing and doing the opposite.
I am back in the US after 8 months overseas. I can tell you from what I have seen, the crisis is taking its tall on the country. People don't look the same anymore and the signs of decay are palpable everywhere. I am deeply concerned and saddened by what I see.
I guess being away for a few months gives you the distance necessary to see and compare. People who don't have that distance just don't see it, because it's a slow, creeping change in society that goes sometimes unnoticed. Scary! I say it again: It's beyond scary.
Obomba and his minions have been bought and paid for just like the BushCo crowd. U.S. elections are a joke. The only thing you get to decide is which bunch of plutocrat sock puppets will screw you for the next 4 years.
One good thing about this meltdown is it now VERY obvious where all the "good ol boy" "rotten wood" is in the system.
I am sick and tired of those who parasited off the rest of us...continuing to do so with such arrogance.
Our government, the FED, banksters, wallstreet, and companies like AIG are all part of the same "inner club" whose members made billoions off the backs of U.S. taxpayers.
A year ago I was still a peaceful individual....now...the only good parasite is a dead one.
Obama will change nothing. The system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up.....
And there are simply more racist whites than minorities, because minorities are the victims, thus less inclined to inflict hate on other people.
Isn't that both prejudicial and stereotypical?
And folks, please learn the difference between being racist and being prejudicial/stereotypical.
New name for this blog?
How about "Firestorm, Soot, and Ashes"
And as far as voting goes, perhaps in 2010 we should do our voting from the rooftops.
(If we make it that far)
Annie Oakley said...
Guns are the new black. I have never owned a gun, but suddenly I feel the need to take a class, go to the range, buy a nice piece and join the NRA.
______
No need to join the NRA.
But do get yourself a good pistol you can shoot well with and conceal. Then get your CCW permit if your state allows them.
Then get a shotgun and a rifle.
Then buy all the ammo you can afford because the price of it is rising faster than gold/silver, and is in scarce supply.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next decade is out, of becoming the world's largest exporter of natural gas and gasoline/diesel from coal/shale. No project will be more exciting, or more restorative to the American economy, or more important...and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish...
To restore confidence they need to stop rewarding these jack asses and put somebody in JAIL....
OBAMA TURD WORLD DICTATOR
PUT SOMEBODY IN JAIL!!!!!!!!
They are still arresting people from the last scam (reinsurance) these AIG guys were into back 2000 and 2001.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/fraud/news/article.cfm?c_id=213&objectid=10554013
I wonder what would have happened if they could have shut them down in 2005?
Here you go folks:
Keith, time for you to pull out your sine wave cycle of investor sentiment chart.
CNN has a nice poll going on now and it samples thousands more than visit S&A:
---------------------------------
Are you afraid to invest in the stock market?
Yes, taking my money out 24% 34323
Yes, but riding it out; I've got time 48% 68274
No, it's just a phase 28% 39491
Total Votes: 142088
-------------------------------
So there you have it, about 75% are "afraid" to invest in the stock market. About half not afraid to "ride it out".
That sounds like fear bordering on panic to me......
Me? I am NEVER afraid to invest in the market. (Not that I buy at all times, only when appropriate) Only amateurs are afraid.
Them as has, gits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/business/04penny.html?hp
Dogcrap -
Good luck taking down that Apache with your brand new handgun. Let us all know how it goes for you, General.
Chillpill..
"because minorities are the victims, thus less inclined to inflict hate on other people."
My friend your are dancing around the answer. But so so so far away.
Why don't you come on down and work in DC with me and try that theory out.
A lot of black people believe that because "They are the Victem" They have special rights and their actions can't be question. Laws kept these RACIST in place. Laws that they no longer believe exists.
These are dangerious times...
This just in:
Bernnie Madoff wants to keep $62 million in assets AND his Penthouse. Can't make this stuff up can you?
I thought you were kidding. I looked it up and it's true. There is almost no deterrent for white collar crime.
Where do I sign up...
REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!
That is what we have!!!!
Democrats have always accused REpublican of Trickled down/uncarring/unfair.
So how do they attack? And it is WAR!!!!!
Farmers with revenues that would qualify a blackman for wealthfare will no longer receive crop subsidy - Farmers are Repblicans.
Money to highway construction has STOP dead in it's tracks. As govenors wait for the free money. Highway Contractors and their WORKERS are Republicans.
Small business owners will now pay double in taxes to supplment their Democratict employees.
Obama the COMMANDER in CHEIF fasely accused military contracts as NO BID and said he would END IT. Obama is a liar. The Military puts out bids based on factors and then awards the singular contracts to the lower factor providor throughout the year. For example pretend you own a car dealership and were bidding on supply the state new cars. You have no idea how many cars and what type. The bid may be a multiplier factor times Kelly Blue Book Rates. With construction they use Means. It's f up that the Commander in Cheif will play off public preception and LIE to extend an excuse to gut out the REPUBLICAN contractors and their REPUBLICAN employees. HE F'ing LIED and got a standing appluase.
But not to fear - Money is being spent to put a goverment worker on lobster boats - YIPPIE for the Stimulas. Money is being spent to hire librianns - That should fix things.
I'd don't care what your beliefs are. Noone can deny that Obama is the most corrupt president this country has ever had.
Cramer just said that everyone should put 20% of their net worth in gold.
So the question now is, why is gold going to crash? If Cramer says to buy it it's virtually guaranteed it'll crash, but why?
Doesn't make sense.
It's probably worth pointing out that Slick Willy was the one who deregulated the CDS market. Now what to do about those CDS? Executive order. Make every one of them null and void immediately and without warning. Now the 1/10th of one percent of CDS contracts that are actual hedges? The taxpayers can make them whole. The other 99.9 percent of CDS that are pure speculation? Fuck them.
"To restore confidence they need to stop rewarding these jack asses and put somebody in JAIL....
OBAMA TURD WORLD DICTATOR
PUT SOMEBODY IN JAIL!!!!!!!!"
He certainly made it easy. The head of the Treasury is a Tax Cheat. The IRS is under the Treasury - Now that is messed up!!!!!
"why is gold going to crash"
because people are going to buy it expecting it to go up. it's like any other bubble, silly.
when everyone who listens to cramer (god help them) realizes that nobody has any money to sustain the bubble (or that the money is all in the hands of a concentrated few), the price will crash as people cash in on their gold investments to pay for food, pay mortgages, etc etc.
the few with the money (ie aig "investors") will then clean up, take all the gold, checkmate.
i wouldn't buy gold again unless it went down below $500.
Me? I am NEVER afraid to invest in the market. (Not that I buy at all times, only when appropriate) Only amateurs are afraid.
March 3, 2009 11:15 PM
You not an amateur your a brain dead arrogant idiot. An arrogant person is someone who is so stupid he doesn't know how stupid he is. Unfortunety you will find out with all the other wanna be glbalists just how stupid you have been.
Dogcrap, with the spelling skills you show and the level of logic displayed in your positions, you are the very essence of a George Bush Republican!
You fail to adequetly capture what a crook Hank Greenburg really is. He just got out in time from the company that he ran for many years -- yet now he is suing AIG, because the company misrepresented itself in his buyout deal!
AIG has a market cap of $1.16 billion. Why is the taxpayer paying another $30 billion for this company? They were supposed to break up the company with the first $150 billion we paid for them. Nothing happned. What a bunch of crooks. It make me laugh to see the world's biggest crook Greenburg suing the company. He gave them a ticking bomb, and now he is suing because it blew up. What a joke.
"Isn't that both prejudicial and stereotypical?"
Yes, I admit that was a generalization, and was going to add "or not". My point was "can't we all just get along?"
Let's recognize that we're all capable of racism and prejudice ("pre-judging", which can be based on things other than race), and ask how can we minimize it.
There are similarities between AIG's financial condition and Ariel Sharon's health condition.
"AIG has a market cap of $1.16 billion. Why is the taxpayer paying another $30 billion for this company?"
Because AIG represents somewhere between $5T and $10T of potential liabilities on Uncle Sam's balance sheet, and huge sums elsewhere. Allowing it to collapse suddenly would destroy the world's financial systems. They will allow it to collapse slowly instead, with taxpayers picking up the huge tab.
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