The Fed just bought AIG

[Table 5]

Slava, I was actually commenting on Flame of Liberty's assumption.

[RougeUnderoos]

I was just listening to CNN and the anchor said (this may be a little off, but very close)

"the CEO of AIG could be in line for a 9 million dollar severance package. He's only had the job since June..."

I actually did laugh out loud.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Slava, I was actually commenting on Flame of Liberty's assumption.

I may be wrong but seems to me you have no counterarguments against my "foolish assumption."

Maybe it would be wiser not to make such belittling comments when you have no arguments on your own.

[Weiser Wonder]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

What I find amazing is that someone would believe that Democrats would fix this mess considering their medicine is more of what has caused the problems in the first place - overregulated markets, lowered responsibility and increased moral hazard.

You are in favor of completely unregulated markets right? As in children with deformed bodies from being chimney sweeps right? Yeah I'll your economic take seriously.

[Five-hole]

We've been down this road. FoL is a well-researched Libertarian who can provide a bunch of articles that vaguely justify the precepts of his political philosophy under the assumption that pure volume somehow points to efficacy. The fact that it all kind of stinks doesn't really matter. Don't bother.

[Flame Of Liberty]

You know what stinks? The fact that AIG shareholders will not be taken to cleaners as they should be. After the bail out AIG shares won't be as worthless as they would have been without the intervention. Taxapyers will foot the bill and the whole circus can continue.

[Ronald Pagan]

Pretty much bang on.

Shareholders need to assume the risk of their investments otherwise bubbles like this will continue to happen.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

I may be wrong but seems to me you have no counterarguments against my "foolish assumption."

Maybe it would be wiser not to make such belittling comments when you have no arguments on your own.

You seem to think misregulation can be solved by deregulation as opposed to reregulation. You provide no evidence for this, and nor do the articles you've linked - 2 of the articles talk about why bail-outs are a bad idea, which has nothing to do with regulation at all, and the other article talks about how bad regulations led to the crisis, and proposes better, more stream-lined regulations, and NOT no regulations.

Also, your original assertion was the Democrats would be worse than the Republicans in dealing with this issue, yet in the very article you link, the focus is on how both parties are equally to blame, which doesn't exactly support that assertion. You could say that the Democrats will be no better than the Republicans on this issue, but it is a huge stretch to claim that they will be worse.

Lastly, while I agree that government should not in principle be bailing out these institutions that have only themselves to blame in going bankrupt, letting AIG die would have a ripple effect that might trigger another Great Depression - they have over a TRILLION dollars in managed assets, and their fall would affect not only their shareholders, but the entire jury-rigged financial system of the world, including thousands of other companies and millions and millions of people. In this case, you have a choice between evils, and the correct way to proceed is exactly what has been done - rescue them from their own stupidity.

[macker]

Credit rating went from AAA not too long ago down to A. United Socialist States of America to the rescue . Time to let the market be the market. Way too many companies in need of a bail out! Turns out many of the Canadian insurers such as Manulife, Great West Life and IAP were also in the wrong place at the wrong time

[Wookie]

Originally Posted by macker

Turns out many of the Canadian insurers such as Manulife, Great West Life and IAP were also in the wrong place at the wrong time

Oh c'mon, don't leave SUN Life out of that.

Also, not really wrong place at wrong time. When you're as large as some of these companies it's pretty hard not to have exposure. That's part of being diversified. Manulife less that one half of one percent of assets isn't all that bad.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

I may be wrong but seems to me you have no counterarguments against my "foolish assumption."

Maybe it would be wiser not to make such belittling comments when you have no arguments on your own.

As soon as you post a little bit of evidence to support that regualtion is what caused this then I'm sure that people will listen to your argument. Good luck digging something up on that front!