Posted on 03/21/2009 3:16:16 AM PDT by dennisw
We are really bailing out Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Deutsche Bank etc etc with tens of billions of taxpayers dollars
AIG is simply the intermediary through which these thieves are being made whole on idiotic gambles
I despise the AIG bonuses but this is a smokescreen covering up the real crime which is Goldman Sachs getting 10 billion dollars of bailout direct through the AIG bailout.
And not just GS but European banks and other parties totaling 60 billion dollars who got bail out money via AIG. Because they bought credit default swaps from AIG. How is it the taxpayers problem that these "geniuses" bought credit default swaps from AIG?
http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman's collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG's inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG's trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.It all appears, once again, to be the same insiders protecting themselves against sharing the pain and risk of their own bad adventure. The payments to AIG's counterparties are justified with an appeal to the sanctity of contract. If AIG's contracts turned out to be shaky, the theory goes, then the whole edifice of the financial system would collapse.
AIG bailout: plunder by the plutocracyThe controversy over the US$180-billion bailout of AIG is over the fact that it includes US$165 million in bonuses to the traders who brought it to the brink. But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
What is scandalous is only not the US$165 million. It’s the US$180 billion which has been shoveled into AIG by taxpayers to date, funds which have mostly gone toward paying off AIG’s creditors, or counterparties. These include banks, brokers, pension funds and other gamblers who paid premiums to AIG in order to insure the value of their bond portfolios against calamitous losses.
I agree these counterparties must get something in order to prevent a disastrous cascade-effect, but they should, like AIG employees, be forced to take dramatic haircuts. This is what Washington has forced autoworkers and others to do. This is what the world has had to do.
Goldman Sachs is bailing itself out. All the finance men in the government are/were Goldman Sachs people.
"Too big to fail" means that small investors and taxpayers fail. I personally will never again buy any stock, because Warren Buffet is going to win and I am going to lose, thanks to "our" government.
People who own small businesses won't be bailed out. If they fail, they fail. Knowing that the casino is crooked, who wants to play?
Does anybody really know where all the AIG money goes?
THANKS!LOL LOL
That was not posted by me at the Boston Herald. But someone (not me) copied and pasted it there 10 minutes after I posted my vanity at Free Republic. If it was me I would say so.
Wait a minute!
Warren Buffet is also flummoxed by this market and crisis.
Berkshire Hathaway is down 34%
Maybe they are too big to fail and maybe they aren’t. More and more these bailout look like one big scam to get more billions more dollars into the hands of those who created this mess. And I don’t mean bonuses. They are a small part
My bet is their failure will not drag down the financial system. If you asked me two months ago I thought the opposite.
Goldman gets 10 billion more dollars for free. Warren Buffet lent them 10 billion at high interest rate for ten years. But the AIG money that Goldman got was FREE MONEY from you and me and the taxpayers and our grandchildren who will be saddled with these mega-debts!
You (taxpayers) are not bailing out AIG. You are bailing the uber wealthy scum of Wall Street and European banks who loaded up on AIG credit default swaps......
Which contrary to what you wrote have very little to do with foolish government policies except that derivatives need to be regulated and traded in transparent markets
Warren Buffet loaned Goldman Sachs 10 billion at very good rate for Berkshire Hathaway
But why did they have to do these insruments in the First Place? That is what I would like to Know . Were they doing it to insure themselves against losses from Mortgages forced on them from Govenment Policy? Community investment act and so on?
But why did they have to do these insruments in the First Place? That is what I would like to Know . Were they doing it to insure themselves against losses from Mortgages forced on them from Govenment Policy? Community investment act and so on?
“Does anybody really know where all the AIG money goes?”
I doubt it. And it is an important point from another poster that by funneling the money through AIG, AIG gets restrictions put on itself but the final recipient has no accountability at all to us. It is curious that Congress feels it should micro-manage the American society but this bill basically gave carte blanc to AIG.
I agree with you that AIG should not have been bailed out in the first place, at least not the way it happened. Wouldn’t bankruptcy forced AIG to prove exactly what money they owed to whom? If that had happened, there would be time to consider how urgent it was to give AIG billions. The way it happened, Paulson went to the senate and said, “Give me $700B now, and just trust me.... or else!” And a solid majority from both parties did what he said.
And AFAIK, we still don’t know how much AIG is going to owe.
BTW, as I understand it, Obama’s deficit estimates assume that they recover 100% of the bailout money (TARP + other payments from the treasury). I don’t know if they are stupid or dishonest, or both.
Exactly! We have a good list now months after the fact but only after public pressure and some leaking of info. For example Goldman Sachs was made 100% whole on about 12 billion in credit default swaps it took out from AIG. In an AIG bankruptcy Goldman Sachs would have gotten only partial restitution. Say 40%
If that had happened, there would be time to consider how urgent it was to give AIG billions. The way it happened, Paulson went to the senate and said, “Give me $700B now, and just trust me.... or else!” And a solid majority from both parties did what he said.
Paulson the ex-GS chairman stampeded everyone. It was half scam and half real
Buffet is the largest shareholder in Moody's, which knowingly aided and abetted the ratings fraud that underpinned the entire structured finance debacle.
Buffet shorted puts on global stocks, and would undoubtedly be nearly insolvent, if he was forced to mark his position to market and post collateral as folks do on the exchanges.
Buffet has an enormous stake in the Washington Post, so he ONLY gets favorable press coverage.
These are all indisputable facts.
It can easily be done come November 2010 ... oust each and every one of them.
I think this Administration has demonstrated it can multitask: it’s both stupid and dishonest, though not necessarily within the same member of the Administration.
I didn’t like the previous administration’s economic team either. I took all my money out of the stock market 4 years ago, and I don’t plan on getting back in unless they (free market and gov.) can convince me that the game is not fixed.
You know, it’s probably a smart move right now. Invest in something you can use, if necessary, to survive or sell because it is a necessity for others. Obama is swiftly destroying both the stock market and the currency market so we’d better have things we can eat, wear or use to protect ourselves.
Thanks, sounds good to me.
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