AIG

I just wrote a long response to email comments upon an article in the Business Review, which I add below. Actually, the response is to mass stupidity as demonstrated by the article and one comment in particular. I don't think you need to read the piece, but if you are interested: here

I really need to stop all this activity, but it there is no longer any place to hide. I will get back to what to do to prepare, as a topic. Right now, I am making maple syrup.

Oh, on that note that gun manufacturer' are out of inventory. There is a hot used gun market. If you want to see a crowd, this weekend in Saratoga Springs is the gun show. Apparently, some people are paying attention. (It is a fascinating show.)

Also, I don't think people understand the what is going on. They are playing one game, not aware of blatant disinformation and subversion all around, which is a nice trait in a safe world. This is not a safe world.

Finally, I just like the picture above. Let us say it represents the coming mega tsunami. Yeah, that's the story.

I read the comments to the above and am moved to respond to the rampant stupidity being given voice today. Mr. Campo says the government - we - own AIG, so "we" should be able to do whatever we want. A thought so simplistic and erroneous defies explanation in a country more than 200 years old built upon Anglo-American law, especially after two millenia of the study of logic.

Socialism requires an ignorant, or in our case dumbed-down, populace. The Obama/Cuomo game about being peeved at bonuses is childish and they know it; this is callous posturing for the unsophisticated voters who give them power.

Don't you recall Cuomo senior?

If you are grunting: "Yeah, what the hell are they getting bonuses for?" Then you are among the manipulated drones.

The inmates run the institution.

Here is the reality: AIG screwed up and in our system should have been allowed to die. The shareholders are not innocent - they are the owners who dind't stop the recklessnes because they were greedy. Just about everyone was greedy. In a sense that is normal. see Federalist Papers #10.

In our mommy culture, no one is supposed to suffer the consequences of their actions. If you can't pay for the lunch you thought was free, then attack the store owner.

When a company goes bad it is the fault of the owners who vote for the Board.
However, AIG was so large and so involved with government-related back-room stuff, like Congress' pension, the government in its gutless, self-serving manner, decided to save it.

The current Treasurer of the U.S. under Obama worked the deal and WITHOUT STRINGS sent AIG money to CONTINUE business. "We" didn't buy it. That action is fine if your goal is to just save the company - there was no buy in and no hooks, like any low-level investment banker would require. The government is run by dilattante amateurs.

To now pretend to be amazed by AIG continuing to run and follow the law, would be laughable except so many people cheer the false outrage.

Mr. Obama should come to the front of the stage and nationalize businesses, as he wants, and not play a coward's game of subversion. Be an honest Marxist, like Bernie Sanders of Vermont. This subversive attitude is enough to reject anyone in any business, unless you are part of the subversion.

So, AIG had a contract with people who made it money. The company is providing them with their contractual compensation, from what the CEO says. Is this hard to fathom?

If Geithner did not want this to happen, he could have let the company go bankrupt, have a court vitiate contracts, then move in. He didn't. Either on purpose or he is stupid. If he were executing Mr. Bush's directive, just say so.

Duh.

Why don't we tell Rodriquez he is making too much money at third base (I agree, but its not my business) and cap his salary at, say, $500,000, the magic amount according to the socialists.

Julia Roberts certainly doesn't deserve $20 million per picture. How about $500,000? If you are shocked - why?

You inherently know we are a society held together by mutual respect for contracts. This is not what Mr. Obama wants, if you believe his outrage. Your Anglo-American respect for work and contract is being destroyed by government which is pointing at a part of society and inciting socialist/fascist outrage.

As to AIG, it became the largest insurer because of Hank Greenberg, who built it from ground up. (He is pissed at the bonuses, too.)

Anyway, Greenberg was replaced by the Board of Directors because NY Attorney General Spitzer went to the media and claimed he was going after AIG and Greenberg. He didn't, when Greenberg called his bluff and would not pay extortion money, but it appears the new CEO ultimately permitted the bonuses be signed. So, whose fault is this? Why is government always given a pass for its, frankly, evil?

Now, NY's mouth, the man who installed the people and philosophy that crippled Fannie MAe and Freddie Mac, says he demands the names of those who earned the bonuses. If that doesn't scare the hell out of the vast majority of us, then it is time for rational people to investigate New Zealand.

What right does he have? For what end other than getting idiots worked up? What is he going to do, take it away from the employees who earned it? Confiscation? There is no logic to it other than he is either inciting people to socialism or playing the lowest form of demagoguery.

This is exactly the same as saying teachers get too much, so let's take it away. He won't do that because teachers vote socialist, as they are voting for their own salaries. There is no longer any pretense that the Democratic party is now America's socialist party.

What we are seeing is class warfare - tell the vast majority of people that you are going to take money from those who earn a great deal and give it to the masses, as controlled by Big Brother. Sounds good to the low-brow, but anyone who managed to avoid a public school education and avoid mass media sees this game for what it is. See - Grachii brothers in ancient Rome. Terence said, "There is nothing new under the sun," in Latin, of course.

I hope some readers can come to understand how their unsophisticated anger is being used to strip them of their rights.It is as simple as that.

However, I think we have gone over the cliff and the "masses," as we have become, will just vote themselves money by taking it from those they don't like (i.e. can't compete with.) This is true "democracy" as the Greeks called mob rule. They feared it.

By the way, can you name anyone in control of our country who ever worked in a real business or met a real payroll?

If you want to understand how socialistic group think destroyed Europe read Hayeck (http://hayekcenter.org/) and Hoffer (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Eric_Hoffer).

Europe only recently has realized, as the Supreme Court Chief Justice in Canada recently said, that equal access to care does not mean equal access to a list.
Get their lead books, if you recall what books are, as they are among the most important thoughts you will read - at any time.

Otherwise, you will vote for someone who promises no tax increase for 95% of us while removing things like a mortgage deduction, as is propsed now.

Once lost, freedom is seldom regained. This will be especially true where we have an huge Big Brother tracking everyone and taxing everything.