The Washington Post reported a "tidal wave of public outrage" swamping the firm, to the extent that armed guards were posted outside the Connecticut offices of AIG's Financial Products division.
It is outrageous and people have a right to be pissed off. The far bigger outrage is why the taxpayers are paying off the huge unregulated CDS bets Goldman and other banks and hedge funds made with AIG. It's one thing to backstop traditional insurance AIG wrote or even pension or investment funds. OTC gambling contracts? I don't see it.
me thinks we have found our temp. market bottom!! go long go hard. i mean congress want's us dead:eek:
It's very possible, that some of these AIG employees have a contract to receive a bonus, if they hit certain performance benchmarks. In that case, AIG would have an obligation to pay the bonuses. Not making excuses, just stating a possiblity.
You're right of course. A great majority of all this money is going to make CDS bets good... However, they never explain that... might cause too much outrage if we were ever aware of what they're REALLY doing... CDSs are several orders of magnitude bigger than all of the bailouts and stimulus already "borrowed for"... $50T plus... And that's what has all of these financial institutions already technically bankrupt...
Where's the grass roots movement for all of CONgress/Senate killing THEMSELVES? That's the only way we'll ever be rid of the bastards* so we can get on with repairing their damage... *Americans are obviously too brainwashed to vote them out of office, regardless of how egregious their behavior. At the '08 election, Congress had a disapproval rate of 86%, yet 95% of incumbents got re-elected. WTF???