© rileyroxx
These financial companies make me so angry. Whether its Lehman or Merrill Lynch or AIG or whoever else is in trouble. These massive organizations, with billions and billions of dollars of assets, make a series of risky moves in the mortgage/credit arena, and then they come looking for the government to bail them out, often with the argument that if they fail, then it creates a house of cards that will cause others to fail and soon it all goes straight to hell.
For example, here's former AIG CEO Stanley Greenberg saying that AIG is a "national treasure" that should not be allowed to fail. It's just a liquidity issue, he says, the company's fine. Just give them time to sell off some assets to come up with the $70 BILLION (!!!) that they need to stay afloat.
Do you think of AIG as a National Treasure? Do you ever even think about AIG at all?
What really makes me angry though is to see this rich old boys club look for a bailout, when the executives and even many of those further down the chain are making millions of dollars personally. Their "national treasures" are burning, which may affect the rest of us either directly or indirectly, but all it does to them personally is knock their $10 million bonus down to $5 million this year.
The government's role in all this makes me angry, too. If they believe that some of these banks and investment institutions are so important to the stability and fiscal well-being of our country, then maybe they should be keeping a little closer lock on the risks that these massive finance companies are allowed to take. If we believe AIG or any other company is a "national treasure", then maybe we should be taking a much closer look at what the people running this "national treasure" are doing to it.
Personally I think we should let them all go down the toilet. While some of us may take a hit to our 401ks or IRAs if some of these companies fail, ultimately we can't have filthy rich executives getting greedier and greedier without there being consequences to their actions. And the consequences are – poof – your company no longer exists. Go retire to the Hamptons and we'll try to make do without you.
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AGREED!
I can’t BELIEVE we bailed out another HUGE OLD BOY F**KING REPUBLICAN CORPORATION. I worked or a company here in ATLANTA that leased them their office space 300,000 square feet………….for 10 years netted my asshole boss (GOLD OLD GA BOY) a whopping $300,000.00 in a commission just to put them in their surburban offices in alpharetta…
FUCKING ASSHOLES
Although I agree with your sentiment, there are two sides to every story. If you truly believed what you are saying then we might as well turn the USA and the UK into communist states – otherwise the Banks etc. will always push the boundaries of capitalism further and further until they reach the point of public disgust.