DISQUS

AMERICAblog: AIG backs off of $3 million executive handouts

  • Older_Wiser · 11 months ago
    Any resolution of AIG's credit default swaps dilemma?

    Paper value of all CDS: $45-50 Trillion. Corporate bonds to back same: $15.7 Trillion. And bank holding companies are hoarding cash, not loaning money.

    Companies are chucking retirement plans, breaking contracts and cheating ordinary workers of pay and benefits--why should those who invented pie in the sky profits not suffer the same fate when they're rewarded by the Fed with virtually free money and causing US taxpayers to see the highest rise in federal debt in history? Does anyone really believe we'll ever see a total recoup of that money?

    Seems to me ordinary workers are being screwed 3 times over by these corporations and financials not to mention what it's doing to the entire economy.
  • Older_Wiser · 11 months ago
    Who's going to be left for the US to borrow from? Asian and European markets down this am. From the NY Times:

    HONG KONG — China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers.

    The declining Chinese appetite for United States debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the last two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days, comes at an inconvenient time.

    On Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama predicted the possibility of trillion-dollar deficits “for years to come,” even after an $800 billion stimulus package. Normally, China would be the most avid taker of the debt required to pay for those deficits, mainly short-term Treasuries, which are government i.o.u.’s.

    In the last five years, China has spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt, mostly American. In September, it surpassed Japan as the largest overseas holder of Treasuries.
  • Indigo · 11 months ago
    Could it be that Space Aliens from Alpha Centauri are hurrying to our rescue even as we consider these matters?

    Maybe not.
  • Indigo · 11 months ago
    From this decision, we learn that it takes 60-90 days to work an objection through the administrative layers at AIG. That's what many people call an inefficient system.
  • katiec · 11 months ago
    It would be interesting to know how many under the table perks etc have occurred.
    Sorry, but do not have any faith or trust in any
    financial institution. The majority are unethical,
    greedy people.