AIG Bailout. Hey! Where's all the conservative condemnation?!

I wasn't aware that McCain and Palin, or Obama and Biden, were the ones who bailed out AIG, NYBob, no matter how you want to paint the issue. The market forces that led to the current "economic crisis" were set up by ill-advised policies of BOTH parties over the past 30 years or so.

Personally, I'm not happy about it, but I'm even more upset that the Federal government - which is currently running an annual budget deficit of almost $500 BILLION - now owns 80% of a potentially bankrupt insurance company, AND THEY'RE CALLING THAT AN IMPROVEMENT?

You've got to be kidding me.

By the way, Citizen, AIG is more than just an insurance company, and this Republican doesn't have any policies or other ties to that company. Besides, I'm not sure it's the insurance portion of their business that's gotten them in such deep trouble. Have to look into that.

But y'all just go ahead and cheer a market meltdown that you think is going to help Democrats. I should point here that CONGRESS, currently with both houses controlled by Democrats who have an approval rating of about 20 percent, has regulartory oversight over the banking and insurance industries - NOT THE WHITE HOUSE - and both parties' presidential candidates for 2008 are U.S. Senators.

I thought Ole Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel were the financial gurus with their fingers in the pockets, er excuse me, on the pulse for the last 20 months or so.  So how come the "melt down was allowed to happen?  Ditto for the banks.

And for Carter catching hell, I was under the impression that the Congress approved that laon, which Chrysler paid back, early, as Lee Iococca liked to remind us. 

Wow - I know AIM is only "local, local, local" but, I thought the blogs would venture an opinion on the AIG bailout.

-nybob

Apparently you were wrong.

 AIG is the world's 'largest' insurance company and have other lesser business interests.

This is not a bail-out. It's a loan payable with interest.

A much better expenditure than dubya's war in Iraq if you ask me!

Below is an excellent AIG reference ...

  AIG: Questions & Answers

http://blogs.wsj.com/wallstreetcrisis/2008/09/16/questions-and-answers-on-aig/

Actually, Citizen, I'd rather see us spend money on American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines any day than on insurance executives, banking executives and investors who are too greedy to accept the going bank rates on their savings but then scream foul when their risky gambles turn sour.

That's just my opinion, though.

I think the USA had a moral obligation to assist AIG because their emminent failure was because of flaws in the USA markets and AIG is an international entity that has no control over our flaws.

The financial bottom is falling out in the USA and AIG is certainly not responsible for that are they?

And then .. Consider the domino effect that would of occured in the USA and world-wide had AIG of failed.

COST OF DUBYA'S WAR ..  www.costofwar.com/

NYBob, you and I agree totally on that last thought. HOWEVER, that initial problem with the banking industry - those "sub-prime mortgages" we hear so much about (remember Carolina Investors and HomeGold?) came about because the government told banks to make loans to people who had less than sterling credit on properties of questionable future appraisal value to avoid the practice of "redlining."

Has everybody forgotten that? Government intervention and interference with the free markets, dating back almost three decades, ultimately led to the collapse of the home finance market, which led in turn to the government having to step in to clean up the mess.

I'm all for free markets. But if a market catastrophe results from government meddling in free enterprise, then it is uncumbent upon that government to fix its own mess. And that means, whether we like it or not, we taxpayers are on the hook for cleaning up a mess left by CONGRESS over three decades, under both parties.

NYBob, you and I agree totally on that last thought. HOWEVER, that initial problem with the banking industry - those "sub-prime mortgages" we hear so much about (remember Carolina Investors and HomeGold?) came about because the government told banks to make loans to people who had less than sterling credit on properties of questionable future appraisal value to avoid the practice of "redlining."

Has everybody forgotten that? Government intervention and interference with the free markets, dating back almost three decades, ultimately led to the collapse of the home finance market, which led in turn to the government having to step in to clean up the mess.

I'm all for free markets. But if a market catastrophe results from government meddling in free enterprise, then it is uncumbent upon that government to fix its own mess. And that means, whether we like it or not, we taxpayers are on the hook for cleaning up a mess left by CONGRESS over three decades, under both parties.

-jdtippett

  Well I'm still trying to understand all of this mess being that I'm not very stock-market savvy.

I came across this excellent article (link below) that has helped me, and may help others like me, to better understand what's going on Now, in the Past and in the Future.

Here is the beginning excerpt of this article from CNBC ...

Thanks Petunia1,

I like sharing information and learning as I do so.

I also like to offer rebuttals to Republican Half-Truths.

C'ya around 'this campus'.

A sad commentary i sthat even with all the bailouts approved to date..

we are still not even reaching the halfway point of what has been wasted in  Iraq. What kind of an economy would we have been enjoying if $350 billion had been invested in America..as opposed to in Iraq and Haliburton?