AIG Is Devouring the Bailout Fund
Q: Didn't AIG already get one big bailout from the government? A: Not just one. This is the fourth bailout for AIG. Back on Sept. 16, the Federal Reserve initially provided AIG with a $85 billion loan. Then On Oct. 8, the Fed followed up with another $37.8 billion loan. Then, on Oct. 31, AIG was allowed to access yet another $20.9 billion. And just this morning, Novembr 10, 2008, AIG got the biggest bailout yet - - more than $150 billion. So. Quite the morning for bailout revelations, isn't it? First we learn that hiding in the Paulson bailout was a secret windfall of $140 billion in tax breaks for the banks. A tax break, mind you, that it seems the Bush Treasury Department didn't have the authority to grant. But while Congress was battling the Bush Administration's demand for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry, the Bush Treasury Department was issuing a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention. But corporate tax lawyers immediately realized that the Bush Administration had just given American banks a windfall of $140 billion. The Republicans basically repealed a 22-year-old law to provide more tax dollars to banks. Nice job, Georgie. Then we learned that this spread-the-wealth tax break isn't the only secret the feds are keeping. Apparently, it's now none of our damned business which banks actually laid their hands on our cash. The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion in loans from American taxpayers. In other words, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what the banks are pledging in return because you are not allowed to know where $2 trillion of your money has gone, my fellow taxpayers. Just shut up and pay up and quit whining about your job losses and your lack of health insurance and your home foreclosures. When banks are bailed out and CEOs are rewarded with huge bonuses and vacation packages, it's called patriotic. But when the taxpayer wants some relief, it's called socialism. You see, you're small enough to fail, so they're going to let you, but the GOP allowed AIG and GM and lots of other giant corporations get way too big - - so big that if THEY fail, everybody fails internationally. And if you think you're ever going to find out where your $2 trillion went, forget about it. You're asking for information that's waaay above you.
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You are right TP, we should just have the government do it all. After all, there is no such thing as a government being "too big", right?
The Bush Reich certainly was.
"We grudge no man a fortune in civil life, if it is honorably obtained, and well used... We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. … Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate... I have often been called a Socialist. Usually I have not taken the trouble even to notice the epithet. … Moreover, I know that many American Socialists are high-minded and honorable citizens, who in reality are merely radical social reformers. They are opposed to the brutalities and industrial injustices which we see everywhere about us." (Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography; 1913)
R_T - What are you going on about? Have you been working without ventilation around glue?
More nutcase off-topic crap from the rat_stink...
The government has no business bailing out any business, let them go bankrupt, like United, Delta, and Northwest did, they are better for it.
thank you auburnite, for the simple solution that people have forgotten. We have a system in place for businesses that go under! It's called the bankruptcy courts. When businesses go bankrupt like PGE did a few years ago, many times they retain a large number of their employees and are able to restructure and come out on the back end as viable businesses.
I just wish our legislature in Washington, DC would remember that and stop using our tax payer
dollars to put off the inevitable, and doing nothing but getting us even deeper and deeper in debt.
And not just AIG, I'm talking GM, Ford and Chrysler too. Maybe if one of those three went bankrupt the other two could merge, restructure and come back as a viable business instead of the money sucking corporations they've become lately.
GW Bush (aka: Big Government Compaaaaaaaasionate conservative) and the DEMOCRAT Congress decided to bail out A.I.G.
McCain initially opposed it (good reflexes) but then succumbed to the pressure by G.W.
Obama supported it from the get-go.
I would have let them crash, and put the executives in prison for fraud. We should also put Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Frank Raines and all of the other Clinton cronies who profited from these scams in prison for corruption, but that is not going to happen either.