During the peak of Wall Street’s Frenzy and Mayhem, some big institutions made gigantic bets while government regulators looked the other way, or rather didn’t look at all. Since the bets were far too huge to be afforded if they failed, they had the character of “Heads we win; tails the American public loses” bets. It was ridiculous that this was ever permitted. When the bets won, Wall Street treated its fair-haired traders to Ferraris and Maseratis. But now they want to be compensated even for the bets they lost. :smack:
Among the giant bettors, perhaps none was as out of line as AIG, whose bets altogether totaled into the tens of trillions of dollars! (They were betting that Wall Street’s house of cards wouldn’t come tumbling done. I’d not be surprised if they knew these were bad bets, but were serving as shills so the other big traders could continue to reap profits.)
Before the bets started failing, AIG reaped many billions of profit from them. But instead of retaining the profits to guard against the coming “rainy day,” most were paid out in bonuses. A small-time burglar can be sent to prison for life for a third offense. Why didn’t we punish the criminals of Wall St.?
I was disappointed to read this news story this morning. It seems the AIG stockholders who were wiped out want their money back. Where they expect the suffering American people to get the money isn’t clear – these are the same assholes opposed to taxing “Job Creators.”
I share the anger of this commentator:
Technical question: When the U.S. took over AIG for some huge sum, should they have allowed others to bid against them? This would have given more legitimacy to the take-over terms.