Fed blinks, bails out AIG with $85Billion loan.

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bdude

Golden Member
Feb 9, 2004
1,645
0
76
Nationalized Insurance Agency?

What's next...Nationalized Health Insurance???
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
Originally posted by: mshan
If you had to mark to market, right now, perhaps...

Hopefully LK will chime in regarding his "soft landing" comments in another thread.

You think this is over?

 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
Originally posted by: gevorg
This 85 Billion is nothing, won't change anything, might just as well save a major "established" insurance company for better or worse.

If you want to worry about a bailouts, checkout Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Their debts are in TRILLIONS! Guaranteed to devalue the dollar.

Their debt isn't in the "TRILLIONS". Their debt is largely already financed. Stop reading news stories and actually do some research.
 
Feb 24, 2001
14,513
4
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Originally posted by: senseamp
You cannot have working capitalism under these rules: Profits are MINE, but losses are OURS.

Humm, I like it :)

Someone check Marx's coffin and see if it's open from that boner he's sporting.

Wonder how much of a severance package those at the top will get. Or if there will be any executive "suicides".
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
Originally posted by: senseamp
Short the dollar long term, is all one can do about this. This Fed has demonstrated that money is worthless to it, it will give it out hand over fist. If it's worthless to the Fed, it's certainly worth less to me.

Wrong answer. The dollar was only falling the way it was because nobody thought the rest of the world was in trouble.

Oopps...
 

Dari

Lifer
Oct 25, 2002
17,133
38
91
Originally posted by: senseamp
You cannot have working capitalism under these rules: Profits are MINE, but losses are OURS.

Tragedy of the commons.
 

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,688
126
Originally posted by: Farang
Originally posted by: Blackjack200
Originally posted by: Dari
If these companies are too big to fail, why weren't they regulated as such?

That's the real question. There's no doubt that the regulation will change to prevent a re-run. But people have a right to be outraged that this wasn't the case from the start.

I think the concept of deregulation of business has always been such an appealing one because the old argument goes, get government out of the way and business is more efficient. I think this gives those who support more regulation a lot more political capital in the years to come.

This is the point that Obama needs to hammer home (and I think he is). This Leze-fair pure capitalism stuff is no more viable than pure socialism.

Regulations and FDIC insurance have prevented a run on bank deposits, now we need safeguards that permit even the largest corporations to fail without causing market panic.
 

theeedude

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Originally posted by: senseamp
Short the dollar long term, is all one can do about this. This Fed has demonstrated that money is worthless to it, it will give it out hand over fist. If it's worthless to the Fed, it's certainly worth less to me.

Wrong answer. The dollar was only falling the way it was because nobody thought the rest of the world was in trouble.

Oopps...

That is why I said long term. If there are countries in the rest of the world who are socializing their losses by printing money and handing it out, I would be short their currency too.
 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,060
1
0
Originally posted by: senseamp
That's like saying someone is healthy aside from the whole full blown AIDS thing, just gotta separate those.
This company is worthless.

clueless as always
 

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,688
126
Here's a thought I just had: we just gave AIG $85 billion for an 80% stake. But AIG is a global insurance company, and it's failure would have dire consequences in the global markets. Why not try to involve other govenments as well? Loan AIG $1 billion, and receive warrants that would give you 1% control of the company if you exercise them. I mean, this is just a huge load for the U.S. taxpayer.
 

Farang

Lifer
Jul 7, 2003
10,913
3
0
Originally posted by: Blackjack200
Here's a thought I just had: we just gave AIG $85 billion for an 80% stake. But AIG is a global insurance company, and it's failure would have dire consequences in the global markets. Why not try to involve other govenments as well? Loan AIG $1 billion, and receive warrants that would give you 1% control of the company if you exercise them. I mean, this is just a huge load for the U.S. taxpayer.

I'm not much of an economist but that seems like giving your local McDonalds $5,000 to help them stay in business. The other countries are just customers.
 

miketheidiot

Lifer
Sep 3, 2004
11,060
1
0
Originally posted by: gevorg
This 85 Billion is nothing, won't change anything, might just as well save a major "established" insurance company for better or worse.

If you want to worry about a bailouts, checkout Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Their debts are in TRILLIONS! Guaranteed to devalue the dollar.

their assets are also in the trillions
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
Originally posted by: senseamp
Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Originally posted by: senseamp
Short the dollar long term, is all one can do about this. This Fed has demonstrated that money is worthless to it, it will give it out hand over fist. If it's worthless to the Fed, it's certainly worth less to me.

Wrong answer. The dollar was only falling the way it was because nobody thought the rest of the world was in trouble.

Oopps...

That is why I said long term. If there are countries in the rest of the world who are socializing their losses by printing money and handing it out, I would be short their currency too.

LOL. You make no sense at all.
 

Thump553

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
12,839
2,624
136
The original poster asked who's next? The answer, most likely, is Washington Mutual.

 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,230
701
126
Originally posted by: Slew Foot
I bought some losing lottery tickets, I want the government to bail me out.

I lost some money in the stock market last year and really, really need a bailout!!!
 

Viditor

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
3,290
0
0
Originally posted by: Blackjack200
Here's a thought I just had: we just gave AIG $85 billion for an 80% stake. But AIG is a global insurance company, and it's failure would have dire consequences in the global markets. Why not try to involve other govenments as well? Loan AIG $1 billion, and receive warrants that would give you 1% control of the company if you exercise them. I mean, this is just a huge load for the U.S. taxpayer.

Actually, the really scary point is that absolutely nobody has a clue what the failure of AIG would do...
 

halik

Lifer
Oct 10, 2000
25,696
1
0
Originally posted by: senseamp
$85Billion loan to a near worthless company that insured toxic mortgage securities against default.

So you have no idea what you're talking about then, huh? They have ~1 TRILLION of assets... fed just got em for cents on the dollar
 

mshan

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2004
7,868
0
71
Nouriel Rabini, on the CNBC Asia webstream, said FDIC had $50 billion in reserves, used $8 billion on IndyMac, and will have to use half of it's reserves to bail out WaMu.

 

Dari

Lifer
Oct 25, 2002
17,133
38
91
With the government nationalizing all these companies, where is it going to find the brains to run them? Who are they going to hire? I hope it isn't government officials or people from academia. That would be scary and ruin the companies.