AIG Price Tag: $1,400 per Taxpayer Family
How much will each American family pay, on average, to bail out beleaguered insurance giant American International Group? Try more than $1,400. Full Story »
Posted by Michael Bugeja
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Posted by Michael Bugeja - Mar 2, 2009 - 12:18 PM PST
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Michael Bugeja (review), Walter Cox (review), Kaizar Campwala (review), Tom Roby (review)
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Michael Bugeja - Mar 2, 2009 - 12:18 PM PST
Finally we see the direct consequences of credit default swaps on each and every American. The growth, and subsequent crash, of these financial instruments represent the single most disastrous financial event in human history. More explanation of credit default swaps, and derivatives in general, would have been useful for the average reader.
Why exactly do we continue to throw our money down a deep, dark hole? The Bush Administration did it, and now Obama follows suit. With world derivatives exposure at between 150 trillion (150,000,000,000,000) and180 trillion (180,000,000,000,000) dollars, it should be obvious by now that no bailout can be successful--the problem is simply too large for any government. My best guess is that key players are using government bailouts to buy themselves time and position themselves so ... More »
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The last line of this article says it all in a quote by Dean Baker, the co-director of the Economic Policy and Research Institute: "It's a massive expenditure of taxpayer dollars with no accountability." The Obama administration is doing what the Bush administration did, bailing out huge financial institutions, including those that acted on greed, without making a distinction there. The bailout of AIG, one source says, is on par with the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II.
This is the first big blunder of the Obama administration that will cancel any stimulus package or tax cut, as tax hikes and inflation will follow as they did in the Carter years.
Michael posted this story.
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Comparing to the Marshall Plan, even in inflation-adjusted dollars, is completely misleading. Give instead a figure in terms of %GDP.
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