Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
Obama's mega plan, and Bush's not-quite-so mega plan before it,
involved nothing more than transferring a couple trillion dollars
from taxpayers and bondholders to banks and related businesses.
"Transferring" is the wrong word. It involved lending the money, at
interest. In the case of AIG the government has taken ownership of
80% of the company. (In my opinion it should have taken large chunks
of the other banks.)
In previous bailouts of this nature in the US and Japan all the money
was returned, at a profit to the governments. As much as I dislike
this bailout thing, we should not confuse it with a give-away to
wealthy people.
However in one way it is worse than it looks. The former governor of
New York, Eliot Spitzer pointed that out, here:
"The Real AIG Scandal -- It's not the bonuses. It's that AIG's
counterparties are getting paid back in full."
http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/
My guess is that everyone knows AIG is done for, so these people are
channeling extra TARP funds to Goldman, Bank of America and others
through AIG. AIG will go belly up and these others will say: "it
wasn't our debt!" The TARP money they receive directly they are
obligated to pay back, as I said.
I pity the fellow the Feds put in charge of AIG in September. He
could not have known what he was getting into. He seems honorable but
he still doesn't get it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031703019.html
- Jed
