i didn't think its GS's fault directly, its quite obvious who instigate the deals, its the whole deal that is immoral from beginning to end
Paulson never decided to bail out AIG himself, it was a broad based decision by government and lawmakers. Paulson never had this discretion nor will he ever have. Please post a link to ONE credible source if you believe otherwise.
it was not even GS's fault indirectly. The decision to bail out AIG and all other companies from which GS (and a lot of other banks, AND normal corporates) profited was made by government and actually the legislative branch. The VERY people the TAXPAYER elected. I can cite hundreds of documents, recorded video footage how everyone else BUT GS decided to shoot billions into AIG.
Contractually AIG was debit and was unable to fulfill their obligations and had to be bailed out by US taxpayers. We were told that A PRIMARY TREASURY DEALER in LEH was too big to bail out then IN THE SAME WEEK, they bail out AIG. To think that GS didn't have anything to do with it is asinine. GS was toast if they were not paid on the AIG bets.
LOL the taxpayers' representatives did NOT want to bail out AIG, that was WELL documented. The lobbyists worked their magic and swayed just the right amount of votes to get it done. They coined the term "systemic risk" and used scare tactics similar to 9/11.
NO. Do a quick check of who runs the government and you'll quickly find Washington is littered with former GS execs. They are "too big to fail" (which is total bull shit) so they will be bailed each and every time they blow themselves up. This will continue until the People of America decide to take their country back.
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Now you're getting to the crux of the problem. It's foolish to think the people ELECT our politicians. Yes, a vote counts and we get to choose but choose what? We get to choose from a pool of candidates delivered to us from Washington and when one does arrive from outside of Washington she is seated in front of Charlie Gibson who puts on his "grandfather" glasses and looks down on her and chastises her like she is his 8 year old grand daughter. Granted, Palin was not qualified to serve as the VP but to belittle her on national television like that was disgraceful. Funny, I've never seen Charlie wear those glasses since.
Asiaprop, I think you are missing the point of these GS threads and why people are so upset. GS is not the real target of these discussions. It's just so happens GS has conveniently landed in the cross-hairs because of their obscene profits. What the true issue here is the entire system. The US Government is run by the banking cartel. I'm not writing a thesis here so I'm not going to cite actual numbers but it's common knowledge that GS, AIG, C, BAC, etc... are huge political contributors. It's also common knowledge that GS's (and other banks) former executives occupy various seats in the government. GS currently runs the government. To deny that fact is pure folly. Bankers can create money out of thin air, lend it to you to buy a house, and then foreclose on you when they blow up the economy. So in the end, a bank can lend you money at the cost of nothing and then take your home, which has a lot of value, when their actions cause you to lose your job. You can't see the fundamental problem with this scenario?