AIG shouldn't be made a scapegoat.

Subject: AIG shouldn't be made a scapegoat.

simply because they were given money by bunch of moron politicians who stole it(taxes) from the public. now those fools in both parties should be kick out.

I'd say they're more of a scapewolf in scapegoat's clothing.

Right. Poor, poor AIG...

AIG is central to the crisis that's cost millions of people their entire retirement savings, among a multitude of other tragedies.

Screw AIG and those money-stealing execs who don't deserve a penny of "bonus pay".

i think they are all aholes but i blame congress and their ilk. hey who wouldn't take free tax payers money if given to them lawfully by say congress.

The whole thing is a little more complex. This is a well-written article on the subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17sorkin.html?no_interstitial

You seem madder at the idea of the bailout than you are at the people who actually got us into this mess.

those companies should of been left to fail. no wasting tax payers money to be thrown away at a money losing companies.

By making everyone pay for it via taxes, the bailout will spread the costs of the bailout. The present social classes will remain largely intact.

But the US will continue its decline, we have lived on inflated wages and borrowed money for way too long. We have no unique skill set or natural resources that rightfully enable us to live as the wealthiest country.

...We've tried methods to maintain our status (notably by securing natural resources in Iraq), but failed. I'm not sure that retraining and investment will do the trick either.

We may need to accept that the US is simply one of several powerful countires, but not the "most powerful". ...and we certainly need to live with in our collective means if we are not going to make this mess worse.

P.S. As much as it sucks, when you buy a company you own its liabilities too. We just bought AIG, a company with lots of outstanding contracts to pay its employees bonuses. Sucks to be us.
If I thought companies would be allowed to fail after the bailout "ends", I'd be for it, but I can't see how the government will say "no, we won't save YOU" now that it has bailed out so many sectors of the economy.

armchair_warrior wrote: i think they are all aholes but i blame congress and their ilk. hey who wouldn't take free tax payers money if given to them lawfully by say congress.

You're not the Chairman of the Board of any companies we might know are you? If not, sounds like you have the right attitude for business management, and you might want to consider heading straight for the top or at least maybe make a quick buck selling some t-shirts that say something like I heart AIG, especially those dudes in London.

One of Brooklyn's own at AIG below:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/columnists/daly/index.html

doctorj wrote: I'd say they're more of a scapewolf in scapegoat's clothing.

Doctorj- this made me chuckle.

http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/

The Spitz weighs in..

Flo wrote: http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/

The Spitz weighs in..

Thanks, Flo, I hadn't seen this. He may have humiliated himself (and his wife and family) but he still has smarts and he knows how Wall Street works. Thanks, again, for posting. I will be forwarding around.