Posted on 03/22/2009 6:29:44 AM PDT by nicolezmomma
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By week’s end, I was more depressed about the financial crisis than I’ve been since last September. Back then, the issue was the disintegration of the financial system, as the Lehman bankruptcy set off a terrible chain reaction. Now I’m worried that the political response is making the crisis worse. The Obama administration appears to have lost its grip on Congress, while the Treasury Department always seems caught off guard by bad news.
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How is the political reaction to the crisis making it worse? Let us count the ways.
IT IS DESTROYING VALUE During his testimony on Wednesday, Mr. Liddy pointed out that much of the money the government turned over to A.I.G. was a loan, not a gift. The company’s goal, he kept saying, was to pay that money back. But how? Mr. Liddy’s plan is to sell off the healthy insurance units — or, failing that, give them to the government to sell when they can muster a good price.
In other words, it is in the taxpayers’ best interest to position A.I.G. as a company with many profitable units, worth potentially billions, and one bad unit that needs to be unwound. Which, by the way, is the truth. But as Mr. Ely puts it, “the indiscriminate pounding that A.I.G. is taking is destroying the value of the company.” Potential buyers are wary. Customers are going elsewhere. Employees are looking to leave. Treating all of A.I.G. like Public Enemy No. 1 is a pretty dumb way for a majority shareholder to act when he hopes to sell the company for top dollar.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You load sixteen tons
and what do you get?
Another day older
and deeper in debt..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boXa8c6OuRQ
a little credit where credit (for this “crisis) is due, so we don’t lose perspective (3 part video, beginning with Bear-Stearns final days)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUKSU1qahgE
meanwhile people on this site hurl invectives at some AIG executive in a che t-shirt who was brought in to clean up the mess...focus, people! don’t waste time on such diversions
>Treating all of A.I.G. like Public Enemy No. 1 is a pretty dumb way for a majority shareholder to act when he hopes to sell the company for top dollar.
Very true. The government’s actions here make NO sense... unless it’s just stirring up public dissent.
Thanks for posting. My attitude towards the Times being what it is, I would never have seen this very trenchant analysis of what’s wrong with the lynch mob attitude towards AIG.
There have been several good articles in the times lately from Eleanor Clift, Frank Rich, Brooks and now this one. I wonder if Carlos Slim is in the editorial office kicking butt?
If you give a tax rebate to 95% of the population....then "fee" the same typical "working man" to death...what is the typical WORKING man's net? What is the "poor man's" net?? Who lost??
This after how many front pages bashing AIG?? Even the Bankrupt Times can spot the hypocrisy in this.
Pray for America
Yup, dead on. The trouble is that it didn’t occur to these a-holes back in 2006 that the government majority had just been handed over to 100% incompetent, reckless, corrupt demagogues. They’re a little late to the party. Screw ‘em.
this AIG faux outrage is the new crystal nicht (sp?)
think about it folks, we have the new scapegoats to blame.
The next step is some disaster attack on the USA which can be blamed on conservatives or americans themselves.
(remember all those leftists who said the usa had it comming? if gore was in charge the phantom domestic militias would have been blamed and osama bin ladden would never have been mentioned)
The New York Times knows that if the Obama Administration is allowed to destroy the financial sector, NY is going to suffer bigtime.
Only when the hypocrisy affects one of their own (i.e. the New York financial district). They don't mind wealth bashing as long as it doesn't negatively affect them. Oooops.
The beating is not indiscriminate since it is known that the bonuses is being awarded to the FAILING division of AIG and as taxpayers we are the owners of AIG. Hence it is imperative to express dissatisfaction at such incompetent management.
To be silent on the matter would simply condone and propagate such incompetence. The notion that we should be silent or forgiving is foolish.
What is not said and I believe is that AIG had it in it’s mind to screw the tax payer, pay off it’s debt to foreign countries, come back for more money and do business as usual.
Either don't loan them money in the first place, or formally nationalize the company and sell of the assets for Pete's sake. But don't loan taxpayer money and attempt to run the company through the Media.
>Oh such poor insight.
Indeed there is.
>The beating is not indiscriminate since it is known that the bonuses is being awarded to the FAILING division of AIG and as taxpayers we are the owners of AIG.
This is true, the beatings are not indiscriminate. However, wasn’t the whole point of the ‘bailout’ SUPPOSED to be to keep them from failing? Getting angry about this, at so soon a date, seems to me to be rather like a surgeon declaring the patient dead after removing the failing heart and starting to place the new one in w/o even finishing sewing the patient up (Or even connecting all the veins/artiries).
Hence it is imperative to express dissatisfaction at such incompetent management.
Ding ding ding ding!
Of course. CEO Liddy was appointed by the Federal Government, and I'm sure that's what he's been trying to do for the entire 6 months he's had the job. /sarcasm off/
Once again we are talking about contracts. AIG honored existing contracts while trying to unwind the Financial Products division and sell many of its subsidiaries. If the federal government thought AIG should renegotiate the contracts or ignore (a/k/a breach) the contracts, why didn't the Fed speak up? They've been like flies swarming all over the place.
The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.”
“The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply - trial by legislature.” U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).
“These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment.” William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.
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