AIG Executives Blow $440,000 After Getting Bailout

Zoolook said:

It's only a bizzare quirk of regulation that prevented AIG from raising capital from it's subsideries in the 1st place.

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rogerinlondon said:

Thank god for that "bizarre quirk", otherwise the real insurance companies within AIG and their policyholders might have been at risk by now as well! AIG will cease to exist with the insurance operations being sold off since no-one wants to renew their policies with them right now. Even if the problems were only within their financial products division, who would risk using them again when there are other insurers around? AIG is dead.

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It is right that they have not gotten any cash from the government so far, but I would have thought that no-one can say what the final losses will be when the financial products division has been wound up. It could very well be that the 80 billion will not be enough by far......

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Zoolook said:

Well the reality is, AIG had enough assets to cover its losses, and so should not have needed a handout from the fed. Most holding companies can raise cash from subsidiaries, but not in the insurance world. The real reason AIG did not get the green light to sell off assets (including subsidiaries), was because it's trillion dollar real estate portfolio being dumped on the market in a fire-sale, would have but further pressure on RMBS held by other institutions (like banks). In other words, AIG was pulled down to prevent the spread of the fire - but the irony is, they've now had to draw down on $70bn from the fed AND sell their assets, so whichever moron decided to hold AIG to the wall (Paulson) really has a lot to answer for.



It's hard to say now, but AIG still have net equity of more than $75bn (more than a trillion in assets and 970bn in liabilities). In theory, they're still solvent.

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Zoolook said:

Charged with what? Charged with using their expense accounts in the same way they have for years, when no one gave it a second thought, as long as the shareholders got their cut?



There are very serious issues, but they're not the issues making the seven o'clock news. Also, there are issues that are being linked, that should not be.

Does anyone really honestly think the blame for (excuse the bullets)

- 10 trillion dollars of debt
- 9 years of borrowing Chinese money
- 30 years of declining industrial output
- 10 years of constant outsourcing of working class white-collar jobs
- Student debt averaging $20,000
- A society that says ' have it now, pay later '

can all be blamed on a handful of CEOs? This country is drowing in debt, and yet still thinking nothing of spending half a trillion dollars a year on its military (30x the next biggest spender). When was the last ime you bought anything that was made in the USA? I see old gits in hardware shops complaining that a hammer costs $7, and so buy the $4 one made in ZangZhou.

It's short term thinking greedy thickos who have contributed to this, so they can save 50 cents on a t-shirt, and get a bigger hdd in their iPOd. And the reason why so many people are stupid? Because they fill their brains will commercially backed news, or read blogs and opinions rather than doing any reasearch for themselves.

Basically, the crap we're in now, is the result of practices that have been hailed so far, voted for and even fought for, and yet no one can see it. Suddenly Wall St is greedy and out of touch. Suddenly we care about people who cannot afford their motgages (but 2 years ago, they were just losers). Gee, next we'll be caring about the car workers and steal workers that companies have been crapping all over for the last 35 years...

The sooner people realise we've been mortgaging our future for the last 30 years, the sooner they might be able to influence a change, rather than cheering cheesey soundbites about corruption and change.

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