Let capitalism die
If Chicken Little is out there running around, please tell him to call: the sky is falling and we need him badly.
AIG just reported a $ 61.7 billion loss, the biggest quarterly loss ever posted by a company. AIG lost $99.3 billion for the year. They will be rewarded with another chunk of taxpayers money: $ 30 billion.
The government has now given AIG $180 billion. What did they do to deserve such benevolence from our staunchly capitalist government.
You may be surprised to learn that what the $180 billion is covering, is a gambling loss and I am sure that you will not be happy to learn that much more government (read taxpayer) money will follow as AIG’s black hole of gambling debts has only been 25% covered.
Keep in mind this in an insurance company skilled in risk management, replete with mathmavens who are experts in actuarial tables but they booked $400 billion in risky instruments without any concern for provision for the risk they took on.
I know things are moving fast, but just dwell on that for a moment: an insurance company whose major skill is risk management, took on $400 billion of unsecured risk.
The new chief executive had this to say about the future of his company which is carrying ca. $300 billion of these unsecured instruments on its books. I am quoting Edward Liddy from an NBC interview: AIG was “very much going to be influenced by what happens to the condition of the economy and the financial marketplace around the globe.”
Very forthcoming.
In other words: in a short time, AIG will be back from more money, as conditions are worsening daily and the honest human – there are a few left – is now talking depression.
Some other facts:
The economy lost 6.2% in the last quarter.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are basket cases (they incidentally are the housing market).
Fannie Mae lost $58.7 billion in 2008, more than all its net profits since 1992 (!). All those big bonuses are coming home to roost.
Freddie will announce record losses shortly.
GM is bankrupt. We (taxpayers) should not pay for the reorganization. The managers who drove the country off the cliff should resign: yesterday.
The health mess is even worse: I won’t bore you with any more stats, but it is clear that, again, the taxpayer is being robbed by doctors and drug companies and those who now manage our health system for $100s of billion a year.
It’s not Botswana, but considering the outlay regarding the return – it might as well be.
American capitalism is dead in the H2O. The people know it, but their hypocritical leaders refuse to face the reality that now surrounds them. Class warfare on the Q.T. has been the life blood of American history.
Screw the common man; screw the worker; protect and enrich those with money.
Anyone, as I have, who studies law, immediately sees this: the law favors those with property and money and the Roberts court has carried on this tradition. This must end NOW and could end now if all those tens of millions of middle class individuals who just lost their future to the greed of those who have betrayed every principle of fiduciary responsibility – AIG mentioned above as one example – begin to put aside their shock and dismay at their sudden change of state and begin to organize around basic principles of sharing, fairness and sustainability.
They must have the courage to displace work, profit and consumerism from the center of their lives. The family, people, care for the neighbourhood and others must replaced the GREED that has ruled American society of late. The farm with animals must come back. Corn and corn syrup must be displaced. The American waist must reappear as the obese downsize. And perhaps as important, we must pay heed to that old miscegenist: Tom Jefferson and think of blood as the water of liberty.
