Months ago I promised an analysis of the AIG bailout. Unlike AIG, I didn’t get a bailout and have spent my time, keeping businesses afloat that are the real victims of this financial crisis. So, that’s why I’m late with this. There is a lot to this situation but I have made it very simple, after all, AIG employees are going to be reading this, they don’t get anything complex, like derivatives.
To really understand the current crisis, you have to way back to the late 90’s. Back then, the head of what is now Citigroup, had a dream! His dream was a supermarket style financial services company. He believed in this dream so much, that he lobbied congress like nobody’s business to change depression era laws that prohibited him from seeing his dream become a reality. Other financial firms like AIG saw a chance to go from an insurance giant to a financial services giant and joined in the lobbying efforts. Eventually, both parties signed off on dismantling those laws that prevented this idea from happening. They said times had changed, we were in no fear of a recession. After all, it was the dotcom era, people were rich!
Of course soon after that, things changed, the bubble burst, Enron, 9/11, etc… But those “scrappy” financial services firms clung to the idea of this supermarket idea. AIG grew and grew, it entered areas it had not before, areas it really didn’t understand. It was 2004 when AIG had to restate its financials, the company that had the tag line “we know money” apparent couldn’t balance its own checkbook. In 2005 I was looking at the stock and realized, this was a house of cards. I told my friends, who said I was nuts, but sure enough, I was right.
It came as no surprise we had to bail out AIG, they had it coming for a while. But the fact we are bailing them out is a problem. See, everyone talks about how FDR brought us out of a recession, fact is, he didn’t. He prolonged it with his version of the bailouts. And Bush and Obama are doing the same, prolonging and spreading the pain.
AIG is a cancer on our economic system. Normally you remove it or kill it, when it invades, instead our government feeds it by giving companies like AIG and Citi more money! Seriously, this is stupid logic, we give money to companies that failed and brought hardship on others who were doing things the right way. I have no sympathy for AIG, they knew they were screwing up years ago, there is plenty of evidence in the public forum to support that. If I saw in 2005 with my very limited resources, I’m sure AIG saw it.
The fact is, the employees at AIG are getting a comfy deal, we bail them out, and we all lose our jobs while they keep theirs and go on spa retreats. They are the ones who brought this economic hardship on us. These idiots and that’s what they are, lazy, self centered and worthless individuals, should have their personal assets revoked to help pay for this mess. they created it, they should suffer. Put them out of a home, they don’t deserve one. Give them minimum wage until they pay us back. It’s a joke to say it was only the top management, top management doesn’t do anything but go to meetings all day, the ones who carry out the crimes are the rank and file. Yeah, the underwriters, the analysts, the brokers, and profit center managers. Those people knew what they were doing.
In the end, they will never pay for what they did, a sign of the corrupt looking out for the corrupt. But anyone reading this, do us all a favor. NEVER hire anyone from AIG. Remember, they did this, so why hire someone who would create such a mess, do you want them creating that mess for your company too? No, so don’t hire anyone from there. Let them all stay there, contained, then when someone with brains comes along to run this country, we can cut them off like you are suppose to do with cancer. As long as these people are allowed to do more damage to our economy, damage in some form will continue. The employees should be punished, every profit center manager, hell, anyone with the title manager. The only people who shouldn’t are the non-decision makers. Call center, admin staff, the people that take orders from the managers. In any big corporation, those people are never the ones at fault, it is the decision makers and decisions are not carried out at the top but at mid level. Those people, put them on minimum wage, bonus amounts going back to 2004 paid back and put towards the bailout payments. And then don’t let them quit until the money is paid back, if they want out, they have to work at it. Everyone else is suffering for their mistakes, why shouldn’t they suffer the most. It actually is not a lot to ask for when you consider the damage being done to main street because of the greed of these people. It’s very small indeed.
Maté Tea for the Mind 