Posted on 03/06/2009 2:08:47 AM PST by CutePuppy
Edited on 03/06/2009 7:16:50 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The U.S. government rescued giant insurer American International Group in part because its collapse would dramatically hurt European banks, a senior Democratic lawmaker said on Thursday.
The U.S. government has bailed out AIG three times since Sept. 16 and committed about $180 billion to keep the insurer alive and doing business.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
So sixty some years later, Americans are still bailing out Europeans!
$152 billion tax dollars went to the AIG Financial Products (AIGFP) office in London several months ago, where a large part of the OTC derivatives were written (and where much of the money has been alleged to have passed through to China). Many billions of tax dollars more might be going there soon, if that hasn’t already happened.
AIG failing would have brought down the World banking system.
The world includes Europe, so technically this Democrat spokesman is right - but it’s a typical act of blame-passing. Which some FReepers will credulously believe, of course.
If that is indeed the case, one must take every precaution that such a monster is put down and broken up- and that none of it's kind tread the earth ever again.
But rather than heed this cautionary warning, we prop them up with our grand-children's wealth.
How obtuse.
I, for one, believe it. What was the question?
I’m sure they’re into a lot of pockets but some of the main insurance that AIG is into is the “public employee retirement system”.
Search “AIG “Public Employees’ Retirement System”” and see all the recent suits from the various states afSCUM unions. Can’t let them fail - it’s the core of the Democrat Party. ...them and ACORN.
Joseph “Joe” Cassano, who ran AIGFP cranked up CDS printing press, particularly after Maurice “Hank” Greenberg was pushed out by the board “on behalf” of Eliot Spitzer and with the help of his extortion tactics.
I believe the reason that we lowered our banking reserve requirements to historic lows and repealed Glass-Steagall is so that we could compete on a global basis against these European banks that are now in trouble for taking excessive risk.
We need to protect our own markets by putting back in place the protections that came out of the Great Depression and bring the world up to our standards if they want to compete in America.
You are right about the “World” financial system, but many of the Congress-critters are so self-absorbed, I’ll give him half a credit for recognizing there are places other than USA (like Europe) that may affect and be affected by what is going on here.
That’s why the subject of “decoupling” always made me shake my head.
Somehow the name Christopher Dodd doesn't fit in the same sentence with the words transparency & accountability unless they're preceded by the modifier "lack of."
Chicken Little is at it again....
Um, Rep Kanjorski, if it would bring Europe down either let them pay or....let them go.
Repeal of Glass-Steagall is a red herring, which Democrats initially tried to used to divert attention from their own complicity (CRA, GSEs etc.) and to blame this crisis on Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. In reality, repeal not only made our institutions more competitive with foreign integrated banks, but also more diversified, and with stronger and more diverse depositors and liquidity base.
If you had noticed, it were pure “investment banks” - not integrated or pure commercial (without brokerage component) banks - that fell due to lack of liquidity and loss of confidence, resulting in potential of “run on the bank” by large commercial depositors including other financial institutions.
Contrary to popular myth, Glass-Steagall has not prevented vicious infamous “bear raids” on the banks in 1930s, nor has it prevented numerous banking crises, including the Thrift and Loan crisis of the early 90s.
Banking system is quite different today than it was in the 30s, it is global and more diverse, and going “back to the future” (Glass-Steagall) would make things only worse, not better, while not accomplishing the stated objective.
Here is the better case of monstrosity that has nothing to do with globalism or internationalism. In fact it's entirely national. GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises, aka "public-private" institutions), like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which recently held more than 50% (over $5T) of all the mortgages in the United States, including overwhelming majority of subprime and Alt-A loans.
That's the ones that were run and defrauded by Obama's transition team advisers Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick et al. That's the ones that were defended by Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd as "stable" and "not in danger". And when Bush in 2001 and 2003, and later McCain (let's give him credit for this one) tried to reform and more stringently regulate GSEs, they and Schumer stood in the way of these bills.
Nothing inernational or global about that, except maybe for many foreign investors in GSEs securities and debt.
Why didn’t EUROPE share the cost???
unbelievably stupid of our government
“Public Retirement” pensions are the next shoe to drop on taxpayers, whether they are held by AIG or any other investment vehicle. Some of these states’ and municipal pension accounts were not “fully funded” (a misnomer, to begin with) in recent years, and with the market down there are few of them that can be considered in good shape or chance to recover.
Get ready for a “fully funded by taxpayers” bailout of government workers’ pension plans.
I thought they bailed out AIG because AIG had the Congressional pensions invested there.
Seems like every day there is another $50B-$100B bailout of something and/or another like-sized spending proposal. I really feel like we have gone thru the looking glass.
Nothing inernational or global about that, except maybe for many foreign investors in GSEs securities and debt.
With the combined Bush Bailout of $3.11T (w/ fed manipulations) and the $4T Porkulus, not to mention another $500B coming for the fed, those mortgages could have been bought outright.
You can comfort yourself with blaming Democrats all you like, but Republicans were in authority and responsible for the regulation of those programs for years, so are negligent at the very least. And Republicans have historically held the ties to Wall Street financiers, who knowingly took those faulty loans and rolled them up into packages, poisoning the whole lot, yet doubling and redoubling their "worth", while everybody turned a blind eye.
Had Republicans been practicing Conservative economics instead of consumer based "Third Way" economics, spreading easy credit around like Democrats, we would *not* be where we are today. Period.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.