meanwhile, AIG still knows how to spend money

[gh]

Meaning that they've successfully bought their way out of any corporate responsibility and they and their cronies are now free to lead the economy down the garden path again?

[guru]

Meaning that they've successfully bought their way out of any corporate responsibility and they and their cronies are now free to lead the economy down the garden path again?

They personally paid you and me $1,418,055,555, and they and their cronies together have paid you and me $45 billion last year alone, for their trouble.

If they're that stupid again I'm happy to take more of their money.

[Conor Dary]

Meaning that they've successfully bought their way out of any corporate responsibility and they and their cronies are now free to lead the economy down the garden path again?

Hey, it is not over yet. Commercial real estate is the next zombie.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0 ... struction/

Our banker friends still have a lot of explaining to do.

"Could you explain how Goldman bet against these C.D.O.’s while simultaneously trying to persuade ratings agencies and investors that they were good investments? Were they designed from the outset to be shorted by Goldman and possibly select clients? And were those clients involved in helping design these transactions? What explicit disclosures did you make to Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s about your plans to short these instruments? And should we continue to allow transactions in which you’re betting against what you’re also selling?"



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/busin ... n.html?dbk

[gh]

If you want more Sorkin (and "no rules of accountability"), go here for a 7-minute clip of him with Jon Stewart (in generally serious mode, which he can do very well)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-d ... oss-sorkin

[7-sided]

Meaning that they've successfully bought their way out of any corporate responsibility and they and their cronies are now free to lead the economy down the garden path again?

They personally paid you and me $1,418,055,555, and they and their cronies together have paid you and me $45 billion last year alone, for their trouble.

If they're that stupid again I'm happy to take more of their money.

With the taxpayer as a guarantee backstop on their bad bets that still exist; they've paid it back, but the losses have been socialized.

[cullman]

...and in the other corner is China's real estate bubble which could have catastrophic consequences when it bursts.

Now, I'm just a poor young retired schlep who has a few beers with a financial mathematician and a senior trader or two. These guys have been a lot of fun to drink with for the last ten years because they have great stories and a detached, almost perverse view of the money markets.

A couple of hot topics over the holidays were Non Farm Payroll numbers. They are being noticed by Wall Street this month for the first time since the "happy capitalists" took over the market. Whoodathunk that actual numbers of jobs are now back down to 2000 levels while the population has increased. We've had a steady increase in jobs during some pretty stinky economic times but I believe this is the first decade since before WWII where actual jobs haven't increased in America. Jobless recovery? Is that an oxymoron?

My buddies also mention that the same environment that created this last meltdown still exist in exactly the same form. Wall Street investment banking is still heavily leveraged and unregulated which means they continue to make a bushel basket full of money on those 20 lb bags of banker manure (the worst kind...it's toxic!) that are somehow quasi legally converted into AAA rated investments. Who is buying this stuff? Doesn't matter...Goldman Sachs et al are making massive amounts on transaction fees...but I digress.

cman

[guru]

These corporate hacks just don't get it, do they? Citigroup talking about a $10M office remodel?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... LGVE_YzvUU

Fed preparing to sell stake in Citigroup. Profit to you and me at today's stock price - $8 Billion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36062775/ns ... gton_post/

[gh]

Not clear on what "our" making money has to do with the fact that they're terminally stone deaf. Meanwhile, this I found today:

<<Well into the crisis period, when banks such as Citigroup were operating on federal investment and when Citi's stock was in single digits, Vikram Pandit, the CEO, was observed with a lunch guest at Le Bernardin, one of the top-rated restaurants in New York.

Pandit looked discerningly at the wine list, saw nothing by the glass that appealed, and ordered a $350 bottle so that, as he explained, he could savor "a glass of wine worth drinking."

Pandit drank just one glass; his friend had none.

-- Excerpted from 'The End of Wall Street'>>

[Conor Dary]

Nice to see one of the instigators of the economic meltdown getting their rightful blame.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/busin ... an.html?hp

[Gebrucilassie]

the absolute worst thing that could have happened" would have been for employees and underwriters in its life insurance subsidiary to flee the company.

Who said anything about fleeing the company? All the CEO had to do was send out a message to everyone saying that this retreat comes at a bad time for the public's perception (credibility being everything in business), so it will be postponed until such time as the company is on firmer ground. In the meantime he goes about an extensive internal Damage Control program. This is just common sense, and to say otherwise is to buy into their rationalizations. The very fact that AIG is being seen in such a poor light is proof that it was a bad idea - if ONLY for the perception generated! All the points tandfman made were valid . . . but not prudent at this time.

Obviously, you don't work in the private sector, nor are you displaying any common sense at all. Any CEO who would make a dumbass statement like that would be telegraphing to his most productive people the ship had suck and they'd better flee. The insurance business is a relationship business. top producers can and will take their clients elsewhere.

I often hear this argument. That the salesman, CEO, fill in the blank position, will leave if they don't get a bonus they feel they deserve. Often this is despite the fact that the government has had to bail them out because of poor choices and lack of good management. The question that always comes to mind is- where are they going to leave to? Are there that many companies hiring for these positions. Perhaps the government shouldn't reward these companies for doing such a poor job.

[lonewolf]

[ the government shouldn't reward these companies for doing such a poor job.

Amen!! .. where are the losers going and what is the loss if they do?

[guru]

Fed sells stake in Citigroup, realizing $12 billion profit.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10939787 ... ition.html

[Daisy]

I've said this before - the US government is makiing a killing on the AIG "bailout" - 10% interest on the loan amount, fully repayable in 3 years. In no way, shape, or form are they receiving a gift. Should AIG fail, which is highly unlikely considering their diversification, the government will easily make a profit by breaking it up and selling off the high-performing divisions.

$15.1 billion, so far.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/ ... -stock/?hp

[Daisy]

Wow, who saw this coming?

The board of A.I.G. will meet on Wednesday to consider joining a $25 billion shareholder lawsuit against the government, court records show. The lawsuit does not argue that government help was not needed. It contends that the onerous nature of the rescue — the taking of what became a 92 percent stake in the company, the deal’s high interest rates and the funneling of billions to the insurer’s Wall Street clients — deprived shareholders of tens of billions of dollars and violated the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the taking of private property for “public use, without just compensation.”

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/ ... its-savior

[gh]

<<JANUARY 8, 2013
A LETTER FROM A.I.G.
POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ


NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – Today, American International Group (A.I.G.) issued the following letter to American taxpayers.

Dear American Taxpayers:

In 2008, you paid for a bailout of A.I.G. totalling $182 billion. Today, we are writing to tell you that we’re thinking of suing you.

When we made this decision, we knew we were in for some rough treatment from the media. We’ve been called everything from soulless bloodsuckers to Satan’s scabrous handmaidens, and worse. At A.I.G., though, we have a different name for ourselves: true American heroes....>>



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/b ... z2HQXLfn2D

[Master Po]

<<JANUARY 8, 2013
A LETTER FROM A.I.G.
POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ


NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – Today, American International Group (A.I.G.) issued the following letter to American taxpayers.

Dear American Taxpayers:

In 2008, you paid for a bailout of A.I.G. totalling $182 billion. Today, we are writing to tell you that we’re thinking of suing you.

When we made this decision, we knew we were in for some rough treatment from the media. We’ve been called everything from soulless bloodsuckers to Satan’s scabrous handmaidens, and worse. At A.I.G., though, we have a different name for ourselves: true American heroes....>>



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/b ... z2HQXLfn2D

Indeed. I believe I've seen several times in the past couple of weeks an AIG commercial on the teevee, wherein the narrator/spokesperson recounts AIG's awesome record in recent years, all punctuated by a series of people saying, "Thank you, America" or something like that. But perhaps I wasn't watching closely enough...perhaps they were saying, "F**k you, America." Oh well, it's just another instance in which I am, somehow, at once (a) not surprised at all, and (b) appalled.

[gh]

on Wednesday night, Jon Stewart had two awesome (IMHO) 4-minute bits.

First is one on HSBC ("to big to prosecute")

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-j ... ers---hsbc

that segues into his AIG bit

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-j ... erds---aig