Chicken Little probably couldn’t imagine how precipitously the markets seem to be falling. And it’s not just the US markets. The Pacific Rim markets fell record levels before Western markets opened this morning.
As a side note to this chaos, Obama called for firing AIG executives after a $400,000 conference at a California spa resort. Actually, Obama’s not the only one expressing this sentiment and Congress, that bastion of loyalty to the common man, is investigating. It’s not surprising people are upset with what appears to be AIG’s snub of the taxpayers. The salt in the wound is this luxury trip occurred just a week after the Fed’s $85 billion bailout of AIG.
But wait a minute. AIG’s expensive conference was from the insurance—the clean side—of the house. These aren’t the folks who needed the $87 billion. And, apparently, this type of pampering is commonplace in the insurance industry in order to attract and retain the best independent agents.
Ok, fine. But, if part of AIG is making a profit, why does the government—meaning taxpayers—have to bail out another part? I’ve always thought all these corporate subsidiaries were a convoluted maze designed to confuse and bury things, not unlike money laundering; the corporate world’s version of the shell game.
Tell me there’s no corporate greed. With the $85 billion AIG bailout, the $300 billion homeowner bailout, the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, and the $100+ billion in Senate sweeteners, why are stocks still falling? And why is the “clean side” of AIG getting another $35 billion loan from the Fed?
What kind of shell game is this and how long will we tolerate it? We should vote out all the incumbents because they obviously don’t have the people’s interests at heart.
