AIG uses my money to tell me how taking more of my money is good for me
In the dark of night last night, the Bush administration and AIG hammered out a plan to confiscate more of my money and yours For The Good Of The Economy. The first $85 billion didn’t work. The next $38 billion work. So let’s throw more bad money after bad! Who needs Obama? Like I’ve said repeatedly over the last year, statism and socialism are here and now. Via WSJ:
The U.S. government reached a deal Sunday night to scrap its original $123 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. and replace it with a new $150 billion package, according to people familiar with the matter. While the arrangement stands to considerably ease terms on the faltering insurer, it gives the government an unprecedented role as an actor in financial markets…Under the terms ironed out late Sunday, the government would give AIG more money, including $40 billion from the U.S. Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. It would also receive less interest than on the bulk of the original loan, while freeing AIG from exposure to some of the risky financial instruments that nearly caused it to file for bankruptcy protection.
The $150 billion in government aid consists of a $60 billion loan, a $40 billion preferred-stock investment and $50 billion in capital largely to purchase distressed assets which are to be placed into two separate financing entities.”
These people don’t know what the hell they are doing. (See: “Effectiveness of AIG’s $143 Billion Rescue Questioned”) And now they want more.
Early this morning, AIG sent me an e-mail from its new “Blog Relations” department. Yes, when they’re not using our tax dollars to fund spa retreats for themselves, they are paying flacks to tell me how taking more of my money and yours is good for us.
Your tax dollars at work:
We apologize for sending this to you as a mass e-mail distribution, but we thought you would want to receive this information as soon as possible, especially since you and your readers have been following this story closely.
Below are two announcements that AIG released minutes ago at 6 a.m. New York Time. For more information, you can listen to AIG Chairman and CEO Edward M. Liddy’s investment community conference call today, November 10, at 8:30 a.m. New York Time at www.aigwebcast.com.
Best regards,
AIG Blog RelationsU.S. TREASURY, FEDERAL RESERVE AND AIG
ESTABLISH COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION FOR AIGDesigned to Create Durable Capital Structure, Resolve Liquidity Issues From Credit Default Swaps and U.S. Securities Lending, Facilitate Orderly Asset Sales, and Enable Repayment of Loan Plus Interest
NEW YORK, November 10, 2008 – American International Group, Inc. (AIG) today announced agreements with the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve to establish a durable capital structure for AIG, and facilities designed to resolve the liquidity issues AIG has experienced in its credit default swap portfolio and its U.S. securities lending program.
Edward M. Liddy, AIG Chairman and CEO, said these agreements are a dramatic step forward for AIG and all of its stakeholders: “Today’s actions send a strong signal to our policyholders, business partners and counterparties that AIG is on the road to recovery. Our comprehensive plan addresses the liquidity issues that threatened AIG, and gives us the financial flexibility to complete our restructuring process successfully for the benefit of all of our constituencies.”
Liddy continued, “The $85 billion emergency bridge loan was essential to prevent an AIG bankruptcy, which would have caused incalculable damage to AIG, our economy and the global financial system. Thanks to decisive action by Congress, Treasury and the Federal Reserve, there are now additional tools available to create a durable capital structure that will make possible an orderly disposition of certain of AIG’s assets and a successful future for the company. Our goal is to repay taxpayers in full with interest, and emerge as a focused global insurer that will create meaningful value for taxpayers and other stakeholders.”
The actions announced today include both ongoing financing facilities and one-time transactions designed to address AIG’s liquidity issues. The ongoing financing facilities include:
· Preferred Equity Investment: The U.S. Treasury will purchase, through TARP, $40 billion of newly issued AIG perpetual preferred shares and warrants to purchase a number of shares of common stock of AIG equal to 2% of the issued and outstanding shares as of the purchase date. All of the proceeds will be used to pay down a portion of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) credit facility. The perpetual preferred shares will carry a 10% coupon with cumulative dividends.
· Revised Credit Facility: The existing FRBNY credit facility will be revised to reflect, among other things, the following: (a) the total commitment following the issuance of the perpetual preferred shares will be $60 billion; (b) the interest rate will be reduced to LIBOR plus 3.0% per annum from the current rate of LIBOR plus 8.5% per annum; (c) the fee on undrawn commitments will be reduced to 0.75% from the current fee of 8.5%; and (d) the term of the loan will be extended from two to five years. The extension of the term of the loan will give AIG time to complete its planned asset sales in an orderly manner. Proceeds from these asset sales will be used to repay the credit facility. In connection with the amendment to the FRBNY credit facility, the equity interest that taxpayers will hold in AIG, coupled with the warrants described above, will total 79.9%.
The one-time transactions involve the creation of two financing entities capitalized with loans from AIG and the FRBNY. These entities will purchase assets related to AIG’s U.S. securities lending program and Multi-Sector Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) on which AIG has written credit default swap (CDS) contracts. The entities will collect cash flows from the assets and pay interest on the debt. FRBNY and AIG will share in any recoveries in the market prices of the assets.
· Resolution of U.S. Securities Lending Program: AIG will transfer residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) from its securities lending collateral portfolio to a newly-created financing entity that will be capitalized with $1 billion in subordinated funding from AIG, and senior funding from the FRBNY up to $22.5 billion. After both amounts have been repaid in full by the financing entity, the parties will participate in any further returns on RMBS. As a result of this transaction, AIG’s remaining exposure to losses from its U.S. securities lending program will be limited to declines in market value prior to closing and its $1 billion of funding.
This financing entity, together with other AIG funds, will eliminate the need for the U.S. securities lending liquidity facility established by AIG and FRBNY in October, which had $19.9 billion outstanding as of November 5th. Upon repayment to all participants, AIG will terminate its U.S. securities lending program.
· Reduction of Exposure to Multi-Sector Credit Default Swaps: AIG and FRBNY will create a second financing entity that will purchase up to approximately $70 billion of Multi-Sector CDO exposure on which AIG has written CDS contracts. Approximately 95% of the write-downs AIG Financial Products has taken to date in its CDS portfolio were related to Multi-Sector CDOs.
In connection with this transaction, CDS contracts on purchased Multi-Sector CDOs will be terminated. AIG will provide up to $5 billion in subordinated funding and FRBNY will provide up to $30 billion in senior funding to the financing entity. As a result of this transaction, AIG’s remaining exposure to losses on the Multi-Sector CDOs underlying the terminated CDS’s will be limited to declines in market value prior to closing and its up to $5 billion funding to the financing entity. As with the securities lending program, FRBNY and AIG will share in any recoveries in the market prices of assets.
AIG will continue to have exposure to CDS contracts on Multi-Sector CDOs that are not terminated. As AIG winds down its Financial Products division, it will also have exposure to other types of remaining CDS contracts, which have generated substantially smaller total collateral demands than the CDS contracts on Multi-Sector CDOs.
Taxpayers will benefit from the transactions with AIG as follows: fees, interest and repayment of the FRBNY loan in full, payment of a 10% coupon on the newly issued preferred shares, cash payments from the assets purchased by the two financing entities and potential asset appreciation in the underlying securities held by those entities. Taxpayers will own 77.9% of the equity of AIG and will hold warrants to purchase an additional 2% equity interest, and so will benefit from any future appreciation in AIG shares.
AIG will also continue to participate in the recent government program being utilized by many companies for the sale of commercial paper. The Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) has allowed AIG to reenter the commercial paper market. AIG is authorized to issue up to $20.9 billion to the CPFF and has currently issued approximately $15.3 billion as of November 5.
Mr. Liddy continued, “All of these steps, which would not have been possible in September, will benefit AIG, its stakeholders and the American taxpayers. This plan contributes to stabilizing the financial system and provides the opportunity for the public to realize gains on its AIG investment in the future. These measures will also put AIG on track to emerge as a nimble competitor with good long-term growth prospects.”
“This innovative solution enhances AIG’s liquidity position. At the same time, American taxpayers will be fairly compensated for funds lent to AIG, and they will capture the majority of any appreciation in the value of the securities involved in the program in the years ahead.”
Liddy added, “Today’s announcement would not have been possible without the vision and extraordinary hard work, dedication and cooperation of officials from the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Board and the state insurance departments. On behalf of AIG, I would like to extend sincere thanks to all of those involved in crafting this mutually beneficial solution.”
Where is the fiscal conservative counterinsurgency?
***
Hans Bader at OpenMarket.org has more.
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How is this fair to AIG’s competitor’s? They now have a company backed by the limitless resources of the government to compete with.
“Mutually beneficial” to whom – AIG and its friends at the Fed? AIG has no reason to make a profit or pay back government loans. They have already been told their too important to fail. They can sit back and pay themselves fat bonuses and then go back to the Feds with hat in hand for another bailout. They know the government is certainly not going to let them fail now that they have invested billions in AIG and have promised the taxpayer a return on their money. What incentive is there for them to make any effort to succeed whatsoever?
I agree with everything you said – in fact I’ve been writing most of it in my posts on this thread (check out #37). The problem I see is that neither of our main two parties represent capitalism.
Ahh a Lion,
“The problem I see is that neither of our main two parties represent capitalism.”
Couldn’t agree more..
Well, if people would stop voting for the “lesser of two evils” (e.g. voting for anyone with an “R” after his/her name), and actually vote based upon the very principles they claim to espouse, then maybe we’d have more folks in a position to fight this insurgency.
We have so many who claim to love Reagan, yet they don’t apply his wisdom: “If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.” If the past six elections have taught us anything, it’s that voting for the “lesser of two evils” still yields very negative results.
Conservative in Europe
Your idea may be the final result
The liberals in congress are owned by the Union though.
Wholly owned.
In the meantime, I anticipate them to throw everything they can at the auto industry, read UAW, to include punishing foreign auto industry in places like Alabama and Tennessee and other states.
Read Red State.
So look for that first.
As a parent, if my child borrowed money and didn’t pay it back promptly, they would have a very hard time borrowing from me again. If I gave them money and they squandered it, I reserve the right not to repeat my mistake in giving them $.
I see these “bailouts” as a macrocosm of the same. We are continuing to prop up and encourage irresponsibility and recklessness, coupled with a lack of accountability. I strive not to allow these things in my children, and I can’t and won’t support my government doing the same with these leeches.
OCG1980,
I think you may be clairvoyant..
With great regret I accept your compliment
I so very much wish I were wrong…
A pox on all their houses!!! The will of the people ignored again. I would rather have seen the consequences of NOT funding this turkey of a bill. Now we will witness the bleeding of our futures by congressional nuts, who would have been fired from real jobs if only they had had them. We have yet to feel the real pain of this incompetence.
With all due respect to everyone here,there seems to be a lack of understanding or a intentional mistatement about AIG and what is going on:
(1) Both the former deal as well as the new deals to AIG involved credit and funds, with the former deal at an exceedingly large amount of cost and the latter for a longer term and at a more resonable rate. To say that AIG was given anything is to ignore the terms of the deals or to invoke the highest level of cynicism – the assumption that the credit will not be paid off.
(2) The spa event was NOT for AIG execs – like it or not, it is standard industry practice and basically a form of compensation (sort of like commission) for EXTERNAL (non-AIG) brokers that sell AIG’s products. You can argue that AIG should have foregone this, but you would be fooling yourselves if you didn’t expect those brokers to write less business in the future with AIG.
(3) The elimination of AIG from the insurance sector and the insuring capacity they provide against the demand in the market cannot simply get picked up by those insurance companies left. Underwriting insurance requires capital that is held in the form of reserves – other insurers would not simply be able to pick up this capacity without raising substancial amounts of capital first, something that is in short supply already. The result would have been contraction in supply and resulting increases in prices in the market. Since many of these insurance coverages are not descretionary expenses, businesses would have had no chance but to pay these higer premiumns and passed them down the chain and every one would pay. Additionally, with diminished industry capacity, some business would not even be able to get coverage and they would not be able to continue to operate at all. Starting to get the picture of the economic impact?
I choose to not like it, I don’t honestly give a rats behind if the spa event folks “write less paper”. How about the American people “write less paper” bailing out the company instead?
As for the rest of your post it is nothing more then crystal ball gazing, your perspective of the dominoes is only one scenario, and by far the worst.
So they borrowed money from the Federal Reserve to pay off loans made to them buy the Federal Reserve? To believe that they can pay off the debt would mean the debt instruments that they insured will eventually be worth something. The Federal Government is going to try and make this happen through intervention and inflation. The cynicism comes from the fact the our own government, who AIG is depending on to stabilize the markets, cannot pay off its own debt.
I basically agree with this premise. If AIG receives basically free money, they are going to spend it as they see fit.
Most likely not, as no company that is still in business with sufficient capital, would want to buy ‘assets’ which bankrupted AIG. That debt would have to be liquidated in other ways.
In our current environment, capital does not come from its historical source: Savings – Capital now comes directly from the Federal Reserve. In theory, the Federal Reserve could act as kingmaker and pump any organization full of ‘capital’ to buy toxic waste. In this case it’s just doing that with AIG.
Absolutely, the reason that insurance rates go up is due an increased perception of risk. If AIG is allowed to continue to insure ridiculously risky investment instruments at low rates on the backs of American taxpayers, than our market deserves to fail. Sure, mortgage rates would increase dramatically, but that would cause the prices of homes to fall, making them more affordable. AIG has been able to exploit this government-induced malinvestment – they should absolutely be allowed to fail as counter-party risk must be taken into account when investing.
Right, these companies were basing their businesses on incorrectly defined risk, and many of them will go under. However, That needs to happen as efficiency and transparency will be consequences of allowing the free market, not the government, to classify risk.
Where I work, money is tight, and they have started limiting use of the copy machine to save money, and we have been told that we have to bring in our own paper if we need more than our few allocated copies, even though we have to use it for work… I must have missed the “spa event” memo… I would have loved to go to that.
No – just a useful idiot – which you have proven time after time.
Does anyone know how much of this bailout will go to pay for bonuses, parties, and other discretionary spending? What incentive is there for AIG not to pay themselves huge bonuses and salary increases when they know they are too important to fail?
Before bailing out any company, we should have required them first to file for Chapter 11 Reorganization. As part of the reorganization, executive compensation, employee bonuses, and other contracts could then be renegotiated to a minimum. If execs and employees don’t like it, they can go try to get a better job at Lehman Brothers…
If I do what AIG did, I would go to prison for embezzlement.
If I have a loan from a bank, I can’t borrow money to pay the loan back from the same bank that loaned it to me. I also can’t borrow money from a bank and then get a loan from another bank using a down payment of borrowed money.
Apparently, AIG can.
In this case, the bank is the Bank of You and Me.
If they went in to bakruptcy, they might be responsible for a little of the debts they have incurred. Having a “bailout” ensures that they aren’t responsible for any.
They should be in prison.
Our “representatives” in Washington should be there with them.
Wanna know why gold is so expensive?
It’s because the money people can see the inflation train coming.. Get rid of the paper and buy the metal..
MtsEdge said:
Are you against government borrowing and budget deficits? They are a specialty of recent Republican Presidents. Want a balanced responsible budget — vote Democrat.
Taxes are not socialism. It’s how we pay for things we need, like defense.
“Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide
dammit Michelle, I need a new monitor now after vomiting on it so much as you post these
I could easily be wrong, but it looks to me like this is the (pardon the unintentional pun) money quote here. This allows them to get the bad mortgage paper off the balance sheet. In one stroke it makes AIG look almost healthy.
It’s appalling that the U.S. government is financing such shenanigans, but that’s what you get when you put the fox in charge of the henhouse.
There’s truth in saying that borrow-and-spend is much worse than tax-and-spend. Bush will probably go down as one of the worst presidents ever.
Obama is going to have a lot of trouble doing that. The country is bankrupt and he is proposing a lot of new spending. So I’ll stick with a very cynical “We’ll see”.
Income taxes are socialism, and are probably one of the greatest evils ever put upon the American people. With America’s current state of bankruptcy, defense spending is gonna get cut, and income taxes are gonna go up… way up.
Are you against government borrowing and budget deficits? Yes indeed.
They are a specialty of recent Republican Presidents. And a specialty of Congress (both parties) as well.
Want a balanced responsible budget — vote Democrat. Unfortunately, that is no longer possible. Democrats are an endangered species to the point of being extinct. The few remaining ones like Lieberman are being driven out. Only Socialists and Marxists along with their lemming followers remain.
8 years from now when the treasury has run out of paper to print new money and Obama has put us into debt 10 times over, where will we be? We will be so worthless that China, Iran, Russia won’t want to take us over because they will have to cover our debts. Bush is a genious !
Lion,
You’ve chosen to misrepresent my statements:
When I said “the spa event was NOT for AIG execs”, I meant it literally – no AIG execs were in attendance, ie, partaking of the event.
Without going into detail on al the rest of your comments Re: mine, I was representing general insurance (mostly P&C) and you’ve pretty much focused your responses on one type, and not to the basic types of insurance that always have been and will continue to be required of businesses to operate. As such, your statements are meaningless in the general sense and lend nothing to that discussion.
National Defense always seems to be the one place where liberals don’t want to grow government.
Social giveaways – ok
National Protection – not ok
Ahh a Lion!(#118)
So property taxes would be OK?
Re: Wolverine
I don’t think it’s quite fair to say my comments don’t lend anything to the conversation. AIG’s main job is to evaluate risk – Not only did they wrongly evaluate the risk of nebulous investment vehicles, they sold insurance products that they couldn’t possibly cover. If AIG goes bankrupt, and they have many performing assets on their balance sheet, there will be buyers for those assets. If ‘general insurance’ is not performing without government subsidies, then there will be a contraction in supply and prices will go up – but this is only because prices were artificially low in the first place. The free market is the best evaluator of risk, not government.
My point is that AIG, even if they are ‘too big to fail’ must be forced to re-evaluate obligations and products from a free market perspective. I don’t believe that can be done through government intervention and artificial manipulation of the risk market.
Just like income, property is owned by an individual or company. If the government infringes on the right of someone to their private property through the threat of violence, than that is tyranny.
lgm,
You are correct. 2 of the last three Republican Presidents ran up big-time debt.
Why did they do this?
The first had to spend a lot of money rebuilding our military (after a completely incompetent fool shrunk it beyond effectiveness). The result of this and several other major expenditures resulted in the downfall of one of the most evil governments the world has ever known. (Yes, I am talking about the USSR and no, all of you DemoCommies out there, there is no argument to my statement that can succeed – They killed more people than Hitler).
The second is fighting two wars. Like them or not, the wars were necessary (remember, 7 years, no domestic terrorist attacks). I’m not a fan of the way they have been prosecuted but they were necessary.
Anyway, war, cold or hot, costs money. The Dems that didn’t run up a deficit saved a lot of money destroying the military might of our country. Military might equals economic might. That may sound out of whack to you Socialists out there but ask the Brits how well they were doing when they had a great navy. How about the Phoenecians? Greeks? Portugal? Spain? What did Teddy Roosevelt do when he wanted to prove to the world the US was a force to be reckoned with? The Great White Fleet. And guess what, strong militaries paved the way to economic success.
There was a time when securing freedom of the seas meant decimating piracy without mercy. Now, we let Somali pirates ruin trade in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.. Why, because we have become a nation of wimps. How? DemoCommies have guilted WimpyRepubs in to doing the will of the media. If they fail to do so, they may look like evil old white men..
Remember, as the man said in the movie, “Blood is expensive.”
Sometimes it is necessary too..
I went on a 6 month cruise, I forgot to pay attention.
My stakeholders need a greater return on their investment in me-send me your money NOW!
My cat is almost out of caviar.
Michelle,
Davy Crockett must be spinning in his grave. I found an excellent article about the perils of government largesse and it mirrors what you’re saying. Our “elected” officials are ruining this country.
Ahh a Lion! said (#125):
I assume nobody bothers to disagree because this is too loony??
I’m only for this bailout because I’m a low level AIG employee with a mortgage to pay. Other than that, the whole thing makes me sick.
On November 10th, 2008 at 1:51 pm, Send_Me said:
Argh!!! No no no no!
If people who voted libertarian or constitution party would get off their lazy BUTTS and get involved in the PRIMARIES we wouldn’t have crummy Republican candicates to begin with!
You’re the one that’s too loony. Every time you drop your little payloads of stupidity on the windshield of this blog, we explain why you’re wrong in a logical manner. Yet you still don’t have a lick of common sense.
Preserving property rights and escaping oppressive taxes are some of the main reasons this country was founded.
On November 10th, 2008 at 6:37 pm, lgm said:
LGM, there are three issues to deal with here and you are confusing them.
1) AMOUNT of tax burden
2) NATURE of tax burden
3) METHOD of meeting the tax burden.
The AMOUNT is tyrannical in nature. When people must work until late May in order to meet their combined tax burden, that is indentured servitude.
The NATURE is tyrannical as well. When people must work until late May in order to pay for bailouts, illegal alien healthcare, social security, medicare, and all the rest, then that is enslaving the productive to the non-productive. THAT is collectivism, or socialism.
The METHOD (income taxes) is horrible and wasteful, intrusive to privacy, and penalizes industriousness. The METHOD is just plain stupid and other methods could create greater wealth with less red tape (flat tax, fair tax, etc).
Quit hazing over the details, this is why you always sound so stupid.
As long as you never, ever, ever vote for a liberal.
The only “recent Republican president” who did such things was President Bush w/the Democrat Congress. The last 2 years have been chock full of unbridled fiscal recklessness. You can’t simply blame one man for that…although I have said before the President Bush hasn’t acted like a conservative for a long time.
Taxes are used to pay for MUCH more than we need, like the National Endowment for the Arts…while it may seem altruistic to use taxpayer dollars to support “art,” it’s not high on the priority list of needs. I’d much rather have my own money to support whatever art I see fit. This is just one example of many wasteful, bloated goverment programs that have long outlived their usefulness and would be much better left to the private sector. But that’s for a different thread, I suppose.
Socialism is when you take money from the workers to give to the losers…
The Republican Primaries have some serious problems:
1. What’s to stop liberals from pulling their own “Operation Chaos”?
2. I’d venture to say that if the Republicans adopted a preferential voting system then we’d likely not have another McCain/Giuliani/Romney-type candidate. If we could have ranked our candidates, then we wouldn’t have had a split vote for Hunter, Tancredo, Thompson, and Huckabee (to a certain extent), which gave the illusion that McCain and Romney’s sort were leading.
3. McCain is far from the only blank-in-name-only in Congress (RINO is a b.s. term. From what I can tell, McCain and his ilk are Republican through and through, which is to say, weak and unoriginal. It’s the Pences, DeMints, Hunters, and Poes who are the outsiders).
4. “Conservative” is also a somewhat silly title. As Joseph Farah said just today:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6223972&page=1
More parties you pay for.
For 30+years I bought nothing but Ford and GM vehicles. After the UAW and other union bosses like John Sweet-weeny pulled out all stops for the marxists I stopped buying American cars. No to any bailout,let em all lose their pensions and medical. After all Obambi will save them, right?
But nowdays congress refuses to listen to us when the overwhelming number of American citizens said NO BAILOUT!
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6223972&page=1
!@#$!@#$ dont you just hate it when you dont even get the courtesy of the reach-around…
I wish we could just have 20 some states secede from the Union and start over. Our leaders, both Republican and Democrat, should not be allowed to lead an outing to Chuck E Chesse’s for a kid’s birthday party.
It frightened me to listen to Ralph Nader and actually agree with him. We have become a Corporatocracy, with the largest companies running the show.
ChicagoRobb,
The largest companies became so by hard work, good fiscal practices and offering products that customers might wish to buy. Corporatocracy would be run by people like this.
However, the Government, by it’s very nature, is the most inefficient business the world has ever seen.
The model we are seeing now is that The Government is buying controlling shares in the largest Corporations our country has. Now, far worse than some Corporate guy with a PROFIT motive to go on is a Government guy with a POLITICAL motive.
I do agree with the secession idea. Except that it too, is reversed:
Democrats have proven over and over again that they have an inherent distaste for the United States. Basically, the Northern tier of the country (with a few exceptions) is Blue and the Southern is Red.
Instead of the South seceding, the United States should exclude the blue stripe. Let them form their own socialist collective. They can ban guns, limit speech, have social medicine and feel bad about themselves all they want. We give amnesty to the true Americans from the north who wish to live in the America that works for a living.
How’s that?
The gun to the head:
The fact is the global markets would have been stunned for a short while, but AIG’s demise would have been a gold mine for financially healthy insurance carriers that didn’t invest in the sub-prime bundles. Instead, US govt believes they have a gun pointed and need to take action…throwing more of OUR money away!
Enough already!
America is heading for a big fall. We have stopped survival of the fittest, we have eliminated competition, and we have stopped evolution…
The sick, weak and stupid are breeding in the inner cities like cockroaches and more pouring across the border.
We either need a good disease to sweep across the planet, a damn good world war, or some organized conservative Americans that take the country back… SOMETHING to get nature rolling again.
Another issue regarding this bail out is that the government wants to keep it secret from those of us who are paying, where the money is going. Here’s a clue: WE.ARE.NO.LONGER.FREE and democratic in this country. Right now we are being allowed to keep enough of our paycheck to continue this charade of democracy. At some point, we will be allowed to keep only a penance while most of it will be confescated by the government. This happens now, but we keep enough to shut us up. Our government is out of control. Some I talk with say we are headed for socialism. My response is, we are already there. The only thing free in this country is religion. Socialism is thriving here in the good ‘Ol U.S.A.
Obama wants to bail out the auto industry (he owes his union buddies big time), he is appointing Washington insiders and he wants a stimulus package. Riiiiiiight…real time man for change. NOT!
And if you don’t think they are going to raise our taxes to pay for all this (confescating more of our income) elephants fly.
Those who believe we are a free democracy remind me of the Jews thinking they were still free as the Nazi government headed them into the Jewish slums just before they gassed them. They were in denial as we aretoday.
Our government is out of control.
I would love to see that. However, you know the end result. In 20 years the lib/dem states would be broke providing welfare and “saving the world’s children”. With their economy in shambles, they would migrate to the “red states”. Even if we said “no” to the mass migration, they would sneak in (ala Mexico). Then, since a good ideological liberal never learns, would immediately begin instituting the same social policies in the “red states” that destroyed their own dem states. How do I know this will happen? Look at Oregon, Arizona, and Texas where the california libs fled to after they ruined that state. We are seeing the same stupid policies being pushed here now. Tolerance at all costs. It’s for the children. No person is illegal and must be protected. Increased welfare (heck in Texas the idiot gov’t spent $ advertising to increase SCHIP enrollment, especially to non english speakers)…….