The Real AIG Outrage

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 03-17-09 | WSJ Editors

[GOP_Lady]

President Obama joined yesterday in the clamor of outrage at AIG for paying some $165 million in contractually obligated employee bonuses. He and the rest of the political class thus neatly deflected attention from the larger outrage, which is the five-month Beltway cover-up over who benefited most from the AIG bailout.

Taxpayers have already put up $173 billion, or more than a thousand times the amount of those bonuses, to fund the government's AIG "rescue." This federal takeover, never approved by AIG shareholders, uses the firm as a conduit to bail out other institutions. After months of government stonewalling, on Sunday night AIG officially acknowledged where most of the taxpayer funds have been going.

[trumandogz]

The AIG Bailout was a mistake when done by Bush and further AIG Bailouts are are an Obama mistake.

[rbg81]

I’m glad the word is finally starting to get out on this.

[NVDave]

This is what most people are not remembering:

The AIG bailout (the original $85B and the follow-on expansion) were not approved by Congress. They were done unilaterally by the Federal Reserve, with consultation from the Treasury.

The voters and/or the Congress (or courts) had NO voice in this.

[MoreGovLess]

Bipartisan kleptocracy at its absolute finest: steal from future generations, they can’t vote yet!

[brytlea]

Always look at how political types benefitted themselves, instead of focusing on what they WANT you to focus on.

[Texas Fossil]

The Wall Street Journal gets it:

“Whether or not these funds ever come back to the Treasury, regulators should now focus on getting AIG back into private hands as soon as possible. And if Treasury and the Fed want to continue bailing out foreign banks, let them make that case, honestly and directly, to American taxpayers.”

—

But unfortunately, Obozo’s plans are to nationalize as much as possible as quickly as possible. THE Perscription for THE Real Disaster.

[Diogenesis]

"AIG's Small London Office May Have Lost $500B"
Ground zero for AIG's spectacular implosion, which has soaked up more federal bailout money
than any other entity, appears to have been a small London branch office
that may have lost nearly half a trillion dollars in bad deals."

---

"Sen. Dodd has been rewarded in the 2008 election cycle with $7.65 million in campaign contributions
he took in $11.7 million in all — from the securities, insurance, real-estate and commercial-banking industries...
Citigroup, $310,294; SAC Capital Partners, $282,000; United Technologies, $263,400; AIG, $224,678;
Bear Stearns, $205,600; St. Paul Travelers, $205,400; Royal Bank of Scotland, $203,750;
Goldman Sachs, $175,600; Morgan Stanley, $155,000; Credit Suisse, $154,550;
Merrill Lynch, $134,950; The Hartford, $94,350; Bank of America, $91,300;
JPMorgan Chase, $129,150; USB, $101,900; Hartford Finance Services, $101,500
Lehman Brothers, $128,400; KPMG, $113,100; General Electric, $108,250; Deloitte Touche, $108,000

With $165,400, Sen. Dodd also tops the list of members of Congress who took campaign cash from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 1989.
Sen. Barack Obama, the self-styled agent of change, is a distant second at $126,000...."

[wolfcreek]

Here's another little secret.

At least 4 of the members of the board at AIG are current or former members of David Rockefeller's Trilateral commission. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Paul Volcker are advisors to the Obama admin and Trilateral members. Let's give these nice folks some mo money!

[torquinus]

Oh my goodness, the Wall Street Journal has found out that AIG was paying out to overseas banks and Goldman Sachs?! And they have the courage to publish this!? </sarcasm off>

I would have taken a good 10 minutes on the internet back on October to get a clear picture of what was going on, if not sooner. And I'm not even anywhere near the financial business. The financial media are truly irresponsible in this debacle, much the same as they were during the internet bubble.

I'm more and more convinced that Goldman Sachs owns the Fed and Treasury as well. “My insurance company failed, I need you guys to fix that.”

I'm more and more convinced that nobody really knows where this all ends up, and that's the most frightening aspect.

[TeleStraightShooter]

...our politicians and regulators should direct some of their anger back on themselves -- for kicking off AIG's demise by ousting Mr. Greenberg,(by that slimy weasel Sptizer) for failing to supervise its bets, and then for blowing a mountain of taxpayer cash on their AIG nationalization.

[A.Hun]

This is a good article that reminds people of the circumstances:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html

This was immediately after Lehman Bros was allowed to fail (widely acknowledged as a huge error).

We also know of the 550 billion run on money markets, many heavily invested in AIG, that happened on Setember 11th.

[AliVeritas]

Something else to consider, AIG Takaful or sharia finance:

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200811152617/culture-wars/the-treasury-aig-and-sharia-compliant-finannceit-s-your-money.html

[SumProVita]

FINALLY....we start looking for the REAL truth...

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Combine that with actions of the Federal Reserve, which is neither federal nor a reserve. It is a cartel of bankers — international bankers — that set monetary policy.

They are the ones that printed this money to bail out an English bank.

Remember, it is not the Fed Reserve that is the lender of last resort. The US taxpayer is the lender of last resort.

And you're right. Obammie the Commie is just a silly little puppet on a string. There are far more powerful forces controlling all of these actions, which lead inevitably to global totalitarianism.

[an amused spectator]

President Obama joined yesterday in the clamor of outrage at AIG for paying some $165 million in contractually obligated employee bonuses.

Obama's teleprompter told him to be outraged about the bonuses because the teleprompter doesn't want anybody asking any rude questions about the $93 billion AIG shuffled out the back door to European banks...

[Obadiah]

Democrats loot America.

[wolfcreek]

None of those people at AIG will ever be brought to task. They're untouchable. Let's not forget this old codger. Hank Greenberg has been in deep with the NWO crowd for some time. http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=TrilatComm&Start=1990#GreenbergMR

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

I don't doubt for a moment that the crash of large — critical — corporations is colluded with the Federal Reserve and those in politics who seek to nationalize.

It all works out too perfectly to drive down the markets, demonize the free-market system as an evil, greedy failure, to nationalize not only corporations but industries (banking, healthcare, insurance), to devalue the dollar (and thus our individual wealth and the power and freedom that brings us), and to strengthen the core banks of the cartel that is the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England and other central banks.

[DogBarkTree]

The truth is coming out and it’s enough to p!$$ off everyone. 2010 cant come soon enough.