AIG is bad for America. The American International Group should change their name to Americans Invested in Greed. These crooks, and others on Wall Street, have been gaming the international financial system for years, with government complicity, and they have no motivation to mend their ways. On the contrary, they persist in raping the American taxpayer!
Not only has AIG awarded outrageous bonuses to the very people who caused the failure of the company, they are also suing the government for reimbursement of disputed tax charges; in a sense, they are using the bailout to sue for even more tax dollars. Unfortunately, this reckless behavior is destroying the very idea of capitalism.
AIG reluctantly disclosed where some of the $180 billion in US taxpayer money has gone: mostly to foreign banks and other American institutions that had already received tens of billions in taxpayer bailouts! The $165 million in bonuses paid out to corrupt executives last weekend is just the tip of the iceberg.
We've been told that this company is "too big to fail" -- apparently they are also above the authority of the United States government, which seems powerless to control how bailed out companies spend our money, even though We the People own 80% of AIG's stock. Sadly, because of the damage done to the AIG brand, the company may never regain its footing and our investment is likely gone forever.
It's seems obvious now that our only choice is to formally nationalize AIG, as well as the other big banks on the verge of self-destruction if we want to restore the financial system, just as we did with Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac last year. At the very least, we should break up the company, and others like it that are too big to fail, so we don't end up in the same quagmire in the future. Too big to fail is too big, period.
When will we admit that deregulated free market capitalism is wrong? The Reagan Revolution of trickle down economics and government-as-the-enemy has been a complete debacle. Sadly, human greed has triumphed over honesty, fairness, and even patriotism. At a time when this country, even the entire world, is suffering greatly because of the stupidity and arrogance of the banking industry, these fat cats who created the mess still feel entitled to even more millions in personal reward. The attitude seems to be, "Sure, millions of people are losing their jobs, their homes, their very dignity, but hell, I got mine!"
During the Cold War we learned in school that the Soviet Union was the "evil empire" because they had a Communist form of government. When the Russian government failed in the late 1980s, we thought the final nail had been hammered into the coffin holding the dead corpse of Communism. What about equally scary Red China?
Today, China is the world's most populous nation, they have sustained incredible market growth over the past 30 years, and they also own the United States or soon will. They are by far our largest creditor, with over a trillion dollars in US Treasury notes in their coffers. And oh yeah, they are Communists!
Last week the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao admitted publicly that he is concerned, even worried, about the value of those assets. What would happen if China decided to cash in their chips? We would not be able to pay up and no one in the world could bail US out. "Lucky" for us, China makes most of the products that Americans buy, so they also suffer in a down economy. We are trapped in a symbiotic relationship whether we like it or not.
That is not to say that China is a better place to live. Obviously the US has a much higher standard of living (for now) and greater concern for the environment and human rights. However, our extravagant American lifestyle has been funded by Chinese creditors and we are living in a soon-to-be-foreclosed house of cards. Experts say we can't let these big banks fail because it would dismantle the global economic system. But isn't that exactly what we need? This system is corrupt, and currency or credit have no value without the public trust.
Our governments must continue to take over these companies, FIRE the executives who caused the meltdown instead of rewarding them with bonuses, and start all over again. Alternatively, let unsound businesses fail; that's what free market capitalism is all about and that's why the Chapter 11 bankruptcy code was created, so that failing businesses could reorganize.
We need to change the culture on Wall Street. Far too few individuals have way too much money and power. I'm all for capping executive salaries. Who in the world honestly NEEDS to make more than half a million dollars per year? I couldn't sleep at night knowing that starving homeless families were sleeping on the doorstep of the bank that was keeping my millions. People need to work and produce goods or services instead of just selling paper, which is basically what AIG and all those hotshot Wall Street investors have been doing. We can no longer trust the private sector to regulate itself.
Socialism is inevitable -- workers unite!!
