"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:51:50 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:
snip
First, I'm not surprised the bonuses were overlooked. Those bailouts were
done under extreme duress and the bonuses amount to less than 1/1000 of
the
money we've invested in AIG. At that time, any potential political fallout
from leaving the contracts alone was a flyspeck on the wall compared to
the
financial threat they were trying to deal with: a series of domino
collapses
that would befall the idiot banks that bought piles of AIG's derivatives,
and the thousands of smaller dominos that would fall as a result.
Second, although I agree completely with the outrage, and I think
something
should be done to recover that money, I recognize that the money itself is
not the issue -- see above. There is the damned unfairness of it all,
which
is over the top. And there is the perpetuation of the business culture
that
has put us in this bind in the first place. Recovering those bonuses won't
directly fix the money problem but it will make us feel there is some
justice, and it will put the whole corrupt, degenerate finance system on
notice. They need a kick in the teeth.
Of course, there is some chance of criminality involved in AIG's
misrepresentations to stockholders, but that's a separate issue, IMO.
But I think the government -- the previous administration -- acted
reasonably under the circumstances. They had a shark attacking the boat
and
I'm not going to get upset with them for letting the bait die while they
were fighting the real battle. Nor am I going to complain that the current
administration, and both sides of the aisle in Congress, are yelping about
it as if the money itself is a big deal. They have to play the political
game and the whole country is outraged. So they have to do something. I
just
hope they don't get distracted from the financial problem while they're
making us all feel better about one tenth of one percent of the total
money
that's at risk.
snip
----------
An emergency is defined as an event that is unexpected in
occupance and limited in duration.
What you say is correct, but this "emergency" was six months or
so ago, more than ample time to trim off the loose ends.
I find the following statement by the GAO to be expected but
outrageous.
----------------
$170 Billion and No Exit in Sight
March 18, 2009, 12:51 pm
The United States government is into American International Group
for $170 billion or so. But so far, the insurance giant has
offered little in the way of a plan for paying American taxpayers
back.
snip
Tom Price, a Republican representative from Georgia, asked Ms.
Williams if A.I.G., which is 80 percent owned by the government,
had presented them with an exit plan.
"At this point, the plan is for restructuring," she responded.
"There are real questions on what the exit strategy is, but our
work in this area is ongoing."
The statement seemed to strike Mr. Price as a bit bizarre.
"The American people can't look at it and say, 'There is an exit
strategy in place' - is that an accurate statement?", he said.
Ms. Williams' answer: "Not that we have seen."
---------------
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/20...exit-in-sight/
I have a suggestion. Contact the nearer universities with an MBA
program, and assign the development of exit/resturcturing plans
for AIG, GM, Chrysler, Citigroup, BoA, Freddie, Fannie, etc. to
the business plan classes as class projects.
I'm sure they'll come up with an endless supply of plans that are as useless
and unrealistic as whatever AIG could come up with itself.
Because nobody knows where this is going. Any "plan" is a joke -- or it will
be, in hindsight, when this is all over. When the problem is a hole in the
boat and you're in blue water, the only thing that matters is stopping the
leak. You aren't going to get involved with matching the patch to the finish
on the hull.
This is exactly what they've been facing.
--
Ed Huntress