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Could somebody PLEASE kill this company

Submitted by RedMango on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 23:49

Report: AIG bailout to add on billions more

$30 billion in government loan guarantees; fourth time to receive aid

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29455792

 

It

needs

to

die

 

It's killing the taxpayer.   

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I really hate this expression, but

Submitted by lagomorph on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 00:00.

AIG might actually be "too big to fail" because, like Lehman Brothers, their tentacles reach far and wide, nationally and globally, into the insurance that guarantees losses on securities such as mortgages, credit cards and student loans known as the dreaded CDS's (credit default swaps).  Now that people are being laid off right and left, they're even more likely to default on their payments to all of the above.  After the near-disaster that occurred when Paulson misunderestimated the reach of Lehman into the global economy, they are probably being extra-extra-extra cautious here.  I know, I hate it too.  I wish they could just take them into receivership and dismember them in an orderly fashion.  I feel the same way about Citi.

No way, Jack

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 00:42.

IF they are too big to fail, then fail them immediately.

Chop them up and hammer them out like Ma Bell gave birth to the regionals.

AIG needs to go.

It's got to the point where their foolhardy decision-making processes have become a HUGE drain on the whole nation.

For the integrity of the Republic, AIG must drink hemlock.

 

While I'm on a roll here, I would like to say how sick and tired I am of the idea that limiting executive compensation might force some of these folks into another line of work.

If that's all that's stopping them, then let's make it retroactive.

I can see why people would support professional wrestling to keep those people from taking a job at the local Jiffy Lube.  But what greater business opportunities lie ahead for the worst losers in the history of the globe?

Fuck them.

 

I was wondering what comes next, but I don't think that last needs any elaboration. 

I'm all for bank nationalization and nationalizing AIG along

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 15:14.

with them.

but try to be patient. These are very powerful people with NOTHING to lose.

They need to be handled carefully, unless you want blood all over the White House. [god, how I wish this was paranoia speaking].

AIG will be dealt with, if anyone still has cards at the end of all of this. Vigilantes are fun, ain't they?

AIG was the one who threatened to collapse the entire world financial network, if they weren't given their bonuses.

Hell yes to clawbacks, these folks didn't deserve the bonuses in the first place!

Can we be a bit discriminatory

Submitted by RedMango on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 00:43.

and a bit more innovative than this administration and the previous one when it comes to handling the financial crisis?   The new same old bailout of AIG discussed here will expose taxpayers to more risk as described here in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123589399651003021.html#mod=testMod

So in order to save AIG, we're taking even larger and larger risk just to do so.  I mean think about it, since the bailouts so far has been crafted to succeed in a very unlikely chance that the economy picks up in the same torrid pace as it did in the previous years, we are going to give money to AIG.  AGAIN.  Repeat ad nauseam until it becomes clear that letting them die in the first place was probably the most cost-effective policy.  

Does AIG even have a constituency to worry about that would stand in the way of letting it die?  The longer AIG lives, the longer we'll prolong another, probably less shitty insurance company(ies) to takes its place.  

Dismemberment is one other solution, unfortunately, Obama's tax-dodging brain trust is as cowardly as the ones they succeeded.  They could spin-off AIG into different companies, they could MaBell-it by splitting pieces of it for different regions, they can split it off into companies based on the different kinds of insurance AIG provides, they could let me run it.  

AIG Fire Sale Update

Submitted by lagomorph on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 14:20.

I only caught a snippet of the CNBC interview with AIG CEO Liddy this morning, but the following questions came up: 

  1. Are you actually liquidating the company as we speak in an orderly fashion?  (Liddy said no, but I don't anyone believed him  since he's giving 2 companies to the Fed and seems to be dissolving the rest)
  2. Are you concerned that having a fire sale of your distressed assets such as the ILFC's Boeing 747s  to sovereign nations such as China will have unintended national security consequences? (Liddy said no, but I don't think anyone believed him there either.  Can you retrofit a 747 into the world's biggest bomber?  These are the questions that try mens' souls)
  3. Are you really too big to fail? (turns out that an AIG failure portends 50% more risk than Lehman Brothers so the answer there is...yeah,  Most at risk is seem to be Boeing and Washington State, both of which are inextricably intertwined) 

CNBC has provided a video of a different interview by Maria Bartiromo.

four solvent states in America.

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 15:17.

Is yours one of them? ;-)

selling off does not equal liquidating. so long as production capacity is kept, you're just switching owners.

For what we just spent this morning to prop up AIG

Submitted by Ironman on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 08:43.

we could:

a) buy four new aircraft carriers

b) buy 200 F-22 stealth fighter jets  

c) buy 14 attack submarines 

and the Democrats used to think the Pentagon was a profligate spender