Government Will Bail Out AIG; I Own Another Company!
Well, the government has announced this evening that they will in fact bail out AIG with an $85 bailout package that would give the Federal Government an ownership stake in the insurance giant:
Acting to avert a possible financial crisis worldwide, the Federal Reserve reversed course on Tuesday and agreed to an $85 billion bailout that would give the government an ownership stake in the troubled insurance giant American International Group, according to people briefed on the negotiations.
The decision, only two weeks after the Treasury took over the quasigovernment mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is the most radical intervention in private business in the central bank’s history.
So, all the people who think healthcare for all and other government spending is socialism - what about this? Now that the government has saved Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and now AIG - do you think we could get a few bucks to give healthcare to all citizens? Probably not…it doesn’t really benefit any shareholders or low-income people.
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Travis Stoliker | Sep 16, 2008 | Reply
This is just crazy! I can’t believe we’re going to bail out another company. Privatized profits, nationalize risk. Lame.
david | Sep 16, 2008 | Reply
Of course Travis - anything to help companies, but nothing to help regular people. Gotta love our system.
Emily | Sep 17, 2008 | Reply
Unfreakingbelievable.
Keeping it clean, but you know what I wanted to say.
Miranda | Sep 17, 2008 | Reply
I’m not sure why everyone’s worried about socialized health care. They say it’s the start of a slippery slope. Actually, it’s at the bottom. It’s the last thing we’ve got that isn’t socialized. Our education, police, military, mail, garbage collection, road system, etc., ect. are all socialized. Even our capitalism is socialized.
So, what’s the big deal at this point?
jdp | Sep 17, 2008 | Reply
The first was funny but this post is even better. Cracking me up.
David | Sep 17, 2008 | Reply
I know Emily!
And Miranda, I agree - as Travis said above “Privatized profits, nationalize risk”. The whole “socialism” argument has left the building; where is the outrage over the government socializing all the banks?
deepali | Sep 18, 2008 | Reply
To sort of drive the point home:
“Investors hoped a huge federal intervention could help financial institutions jettison bad mortgage debt and stop the drain on capital that has already taken down companies including Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080918/wall_street.html
Yay, government owns a big share of Wall Street, let’s buy up shares!
cwaltz | Sep 18, 2008 | Reply
Well, at this point it’s pretty darned if you do something, darned if you don’t. How many people did AIG, Fannie and Freddie employ? Do you really think the economy could absorb that without a ripple if the government hadn’t bailed them out?
I do have to wonder though are you really naive enough to believe that the people who rubberstamped FISA aren’t just as much in the pocket for corporate America as their so called “opposition”? Ask yourself why HR 676 which actually would socialize medical care has languished in Congress and why Senator Kerry said national health care would be DOA? The Democrats are just hoping you are too busy watching American Idol to notice they are just as bad as their alternative.
David | Sep 18, 2008 | Reply
cwaltz - note I didnt blame a particular party. But in general, we all know who wants total deregulation, that only leads to this kind of mess…leaving taxpayers to clean it up.
cwaltz | Sep 19, 2008 | Reply
David,
Both parties are for a “free market.” It wasn’t but a couple of months ago Goolsbee was out there telling us how superior Obama was because he wanted to give everybody stimulus checks rather than spend money on government programs like Oil for Seniors like Hillary. How’d that work out for our economy? Don’t even get me started about SS being in “crisis”(Geez, I’m sure that has nothing to do with the President and Congress spending the surplus like drunken sailors rather than putting it away). It isn’t just McCain that was using that line. I feel bad because alot of Americans are going to suffer as a result of how we have allowed the media to frame the narrative and make elections into a version of reality TV where instead of listening to and debating ideas each debate a candidate was voted off like Survivor(because after all Democrats are like generics).
media kingdom | Sep 19, 2008 | Reply
from a historical standpoint it’s hard to object to the government’s mass bailouts since similar debt-producing methods were put into action to save the U.S. from the Depression; maybe we’ve been heading for socialism ever since…