Welcome to ...

The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

AIG may sue US over $182bn bailout that saved them

As if we needed another example of how poorly executed the bailout was. AIG reportedly recognizes that they needed the $182 billion taxpayer bailout, but they’re now complaining that the terms of the bailout were too harsh for shareholders. To thank the American taxpayer for their sacrifice, AIG’s board is reviewing the possibility of filing a lawsuit for $25 billion against the US government, aka against YOU, the taxpayers, who got no bailout at all, but paid for theirs.Somehow the Wall Street players that destroyed the economy still don’t get why Americans hate them so much. I wonder what the impact would have been for shareholders if the US taxpayers let AIG completely fold?
First, here’s the latest outrage from AIG, then let’s talk a walk through recent history to get the full flavor of just how awful this company really is.
Thanks for nothing, jerks.
Fresh from paying back a $182 billion bailout, the American International Group has been running a nationwide advertising campaign with the tagline “Thank you America.”
AIG logoBehind the scenes, the restored insurance company is weighing whether to tell the government agencies that rescued it during the financial crisis: thanks, but you cheated our shareholders.
The board of A.I.G. will meet on Wednesday to consider joining a $25 billion shareholder lawsuit against the government, court records show. The lawsuit does not argue that government help was not needed. It contends that the onerous nature of the rescue — the taking of what became a 92 percent stake in the company, the deal’s high interest rates and the funneling of billions to the insurer’s Wall Street clients — deprived shareholders of tens of billions of dollars and violated the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the taking of private property for “public use, without just compensation.”
Remember the time AIG’s CEO said that the retirement age would have to move up to 70, even 80 years of age?
Or the time, AFTER we already bailed AIG out to the tune of nearly $200 billion dollars, AIG paid $450M in bonuses to retain 400 people who lost $34 billion?
And then AIG’s spoiled rotten employees got all snippy and threatened to leave the company if we kept complaining about their obscene bonuses.  As if anyone would want to hire the guys who sunk AIG in the first place.  Good luck with that.
Or the other time a former AIG head sued the government because he didn’t like the way the bailout went – the one that saved his company’s behind?
Mitt Romney and Bill O’Reilly were right.  There is a class of people in America who simply “want things”: the “AIG class.”

No comments: