News and Politics | September 17, 2008 | 54 comments

White House defends AIG rescue, possibly more to come...

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080917/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_markets

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Pericles_Lewnes
The White House gave a newly nuanced description Wednesday of the U.S. economy, calling it a mixed picture and saying it ultimately will weather the current turmoil.

Press secretary Dana Perino, President Bush's chief spokeswoman, also defended the extraordinary federal takeover of sinking insurance giant American International Group Inc., while not ruling out further private-sector bailouts by Washington.

Perino told reporters that help for other endangered corporations would be considered by the government on a "case-by-case basis."

Among those pleading for Washington's help, for instance, is the struggling U.S. auto industry, which has suffered...

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54 comments // White House defends AIG rescue, possibly more to come...

  • NeoDotCom
    • 0
      NeoDotCom  

    • "I'm Old"

      That's my favorite quote from the article

      Bush is like Peter Griffin

      I love the look on my conservative friends face when I say his name. They get squirmish. It's hilarious. These were the same people who said, "Rally around the president", "Trust the president", "You're a conspiracy theorist", "I trust the president".

      How does it feel to be you?

      Do you even stop and think about it

      Or do you just hop on the McCalin ticket.
      Felt so good the first time you're just thirsty for more.

      Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran

      McCalin 08

    • 3 years ago
  • Leonidis
    • 0
      Leonidis  

    • This reminds me of that movie "weekend at Bernies" where Bernie dies and the other two guys in the movie keep propping him up and dressing him up giving the illusion that he is still alive.

    • 3 years ago
  • k8_hj
  • tokomoe
  • Prijedor
    • 0
      Prijedor  

    • If they were bailed out by our tax money, doesnt that give us, tax payers, stake in that company?
      What are American people getting out of all these companies that are getting bailed out with our tax money?

    • 3 years ago
  • Mark701
    • 0
      Mark701  

    • Hmm wonder if any help is being considered for all the people facing forclosure? If there is any doubt about Republican priorites (i.e Wall Street v.s. Main Street) all you have to do is examine who the Bush Administration is concerned about the most.

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • A NATION OF VILLAGE IDIOTS !
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/a-nation-of-village-idiot_b_127340.html

      Don't let them tell you this economic meltdown is a complicated mess. It's not. Our national financial crisis is readily understood by anyone who has seen greed and hypocrisy. But we are now witnessing them on a profound, monumental scale.

      PRIVATIZE THE PROFITS & SOCIALIZE THE LOSS !

      How did we get here?

      That's pretty easy to answer, too. His name is Phil Gramm. A few days after the Supreme Court made George W. Bush president in 2000, Gramm stuck something called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act into the budget bill. Nobody knew that the Texas senator was slipping America a 262 page poison pill. The Gramm Guts America Act was designed to keep regulators from controlling new financial tools described as credit "swaps." These are instruments like sub-prime mortgages bundled up and sold as securities. Under the Gramm law, neither the SEC nor the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) were able to examine financial institutions like hedge funds or investment banks to guarantee they had the assets necessary to cover losses they were guaranteeing.

    • 3 years ago
  • Mark701
    • 0
      Mark701  
    • WhiteNoise:

      I think this is know as the repeal of the Glass Stegall Act.

      "In November of 1999 Congress repealed the GSA with the establishment of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which eliminated the GSA restrictions against affiliations between commercial and investment banks. Furthermore, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allows banking institutions to provide a broader range of services, including underwriting and other dealing activities. "

      Translation: They removed the firewall between investment and commercial banking which was established during the Depression to prevent things like the current economic meltdown, from occuring. Please note that this was passed by a Republican led Congress(i.e. the ruling corporatocricy) for the benefit of their banking buddies. It is only arrogance and greed of the highest magnitude that served as motivation to gut Glass-Stegall. Phil "we are nothing but a nation of whiners" Gramm, one of the major authors of the bill and John McCains former(?) campaign financial advisor, should be shot.

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • Leonidis
  • Brotha_B
    • 0
      Brotha_B  

    • Whoa - now that so many American Companies are taking dumps, it's the perfect time to buy shares... It's like surfing; right now the tide is out.

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s the worst possible move, and it puts the class war back in business with a vengeance. Wall Street has been preparing for this for years, because every financial analyst knows that the debts can’t be paid. And the question that Wall Street has, if you’re going to take a gamble on bad debts that can’t be paid, how are you going to come out a winner? And there’s only one way of coming out a winner, and that’s to make the government bail you out.

      This has been known for years, because it’s inherent almost in the mathematics of compound interest. Every banker I know knew that the loans they were making were going to go bad. They were trying to sell them to somebody else, ultimately expecting them to end up with some sovereign wealth fund.

      And now, you had at the beginning of the show, McCain saying that this is the result of fraud and incompetence. The government has now bailed them out. But by bailing them out—Wall Street was coming to terms with the bad debts. When Bear Stearns went under and when Lehman Brothers went under, this began to wipe away the bad debts. And when the debts exceed the ability to pay, there’s only one thing any economy can do, and that’s wipe them out. Instead, the government is trying to keep the fiction alive. And what Paulson did yesterday, in bailing out AIG, was to try to lock in whoever is the next president not only to further bailouts of Wall Street, ostensibly to protect the public money, but to make it impossible to write down the debts of the four million homeowners that are expected to default this year, impossible to write down the debts of companies that have issued junk bonds, impossible for the country to get rid of this excess of debts that can’t be repaid.

      And you’re having really a war now of creditors against debtors. And this is what Wall Street has been preparing for. It needed an emergency to do it. It’s really not an emergency at all. This has been building up for many years. Everybody expected it. And breathlessly now, the Secretary of Treasury has done it.

      Michael Hudson, President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and author of Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire. He is the chief economic adviser to Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

    • 3 years ago
  • Gian39
  • agitator
    • 0
      agitator  

    • Let me try this again. If you walk into a bank, pull a gun, demand money, shoot a family of three and cause a 15 car pile up while fleeing the police, is your left hand less responsible then your right hand?

      We have a two party system of people who were "elected" by us, the people, a single entity. And not one of them has done a damn thing but run for office since the day we met them. They have been hand selected by the wealthiest Democrats and the wealthiest Republicans, and sold to us in the same manner and style of a Super Bowl game, right down to the colors, teams and really cool TV graphics. The election gives you something to pull for and something to hate. This is how they distract you from the fact that you are being pimped by your government. You bicker about the candidate’s pasts and tear at the lives of their families as if you are discussing stats and game strategy, not doing right and wrong. And in the end these people are not selected or elected by you or me or any other version of the average American and for that reason they will never have our best interest at heart. We will never be anything more than the disposable batteries in their little toys of industry. Revenue engines to optimized exploited, taxed and disposed of without regard. They work us, tax us, imprison us, regulate us, manage us, document us, trade us and kill us in their petty wars that could have easily been resolved without bloodshed.

      They play with our tax dollars, misuse property laws, avoid, break, bend and change the laws at will. They have written a tax code that is incomprehensible by one man and is therefore; always open to interpretation and manipulation. Which works in favor of the IRS and against you, but the other way around if the taxpayer is a large corporation. Why do you send them your money so willingly?

    • 3 years ago
  • third_eye_view
  • Tori
    • 0
      Tori  

    • By the way, Pericles, I love the photo.

      Yes Dana Perino is a babe.

      And yes, she looks ... speechless? Like she is staring down Big Foot? Great shot!

    • 3 years ago
  • Pericles_Lewnes
  • Xomeron
  • Tori
    • 0
      Tori  

    • Man, I was so sure that AIG was invincible. I didn't think they were going anywhere. Thanks economy, Bush, whoever!

    • 3 years ago
  • JohnA
  • arizonamike
    • 0
      arizonamike  

    • who the fuck gave washington the athority to give away 85 billion of our money to bail out aig. i cant find any thing in our constitution that says they can!!!! WTF???? or do we have a constitution any more????? I AM FEED UP WITH THESE FUCKING POLITICIANS THERE FUCKIN CROOKS!!!!!!!!

    • 3 years ago
  • Dmitri_Molotov
  • bimmer_man
    • 0
      bimmer_man  

    • but if the FED is the one taking 80% of the company, and it itself is a privately owned bank, are the taxpayers becoming owners of anything? or are we just paying for the FED to own a huge insurance company?

    • 3 years ago
  • Mark701
    • 0
      Mark701  
    • bimmer_man:

      The short answer I believe is, are you fucking kidding?!? Do you actually think you will see a dime in return for saving their sorry asses from their own incompetence and unbridled greed?? Nope. When they get back on their feet there will be a quick, "hey suckers, thanks alot" and it will be business as usual.

    • 3 years ago
  • Robroy1
    • 0
      Robroy1  

    • Time to nationalize BIG OIL and give the taxpayers who are becomming owners of Banks, and Insurance co's etc. a deal on Gas, after all we are shareholders!

    • 3 years ago
  • iloveravi
    • 0
      iloveravi  

    • As the tax payers buy up all these huge companies what do you think the execs are doing?

      If you fuck up your business you end up on the street.

      Are they even being asked to sell the gulfstream?

      The american people are suckers.

    • 3 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  

    • Wowwww, a new low for them.

      I was cutting Bush some slack since I figured none of this was really his fault. Now they come out and defend it? He can go to hell, he approves of all this shit.

    • 3 years ago
  • pressrecord
  • iloveravi
    • 0
      iloveravi  
    • pressrecord:

      Yeah, total smoke-show. Foxy.

      But she can lie to the nation with scary ease.

      And she'll go down in history as the pretty face pasted on a criminally insane administration that wounded the nation and destabilized the world.

      Sad to see someone so young and pretty sell their soul.

    • 3 years ago
  • Brotha_B
  • eldamon
  • Ayahuasca2012
    • 0
      Ayahuasca2012  

    • Hey White House! While you're bailing people out... how about sending some love over here? What? My bills and debts are my own problem and I should learn to spend more carefully and not loan money to people I'm not sure I can trust?... oh... umm... ok... I just thought because... No? Oh... well what if I... No? Ok... how about... alright I get it...

    • 3 years ago
  • axiomcafe
    • 0
      axiomcafe  

    • Gotta love it. When a company profits they privatize. When a company fails they nationalize. We still live in a free market right? Well taxpayers, prepare to buy up Washington Mutual and Wachovia next, whether you want to or not.

    • 3 years ago
  • CreditFigaro
  • kaffegeek
    • 0
      kaffegeek  

    • dont forget what started the whole mess. the inept and criminal running of FNMA and the bogus Mortage debt they produced, run by Clinton appointees, who are now on Obamas advisory staff.

    • 3 years ago
  • neocongo
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  

    • Wow, this is great!

      Unless we practice double standards, This means that

      If I fuck up on the job, resulting in devastating effects for all of my customers, get fired, and then can't hold my obligations, then the government is going to bail me out and give me loans to make sure I don't go completely bankrupt.... right?

      Oh yeah, and don't forget the 200 million dollar severance pay!

      This is horse shit.

      Republicans constantly talk about how deregulation is the key, and then when it is them in trouble they line up at the government's handout table just like anyone else.

      What a joke.

    • 3 years ago
  • rachelmaechel
    • 0
      rachelmaechel  

    • ha kadugen
      mmm im sure there is some rule of economics that keeps the feds from printing out money and handing us 100000 each.

      Can someone explain it to me. Im being serious.
      Maybe not for foreign payments but they should have hooked it up for all of the Banks that have failed this year.

    • 3 years ago
  • BurbianKid
    • 0
      BurbianKid  
    • rachelmaechel:

      I'm not an expert or anything but I can sort of explain it. If we were all given lets say a million dollars, then we would all lose the incentive to work. For example, why would I work for 20 dollars an hour, when I already have a million? Also, flooding the market with a lot of money would cause unbelievable inflation. A gallon of milk would be worth probably a million dollars. So in reality, we may have more money, but we can't buy anything with it.

      Also, the reason the government can't just give these companies free money because these companies need to learn a lesson. For example, it would be like parents rewarding their kids for failing school. You have to have some tough love.

      And the government is bailing out some of these more important companies that the government feels is essential to the U.S economy. Not with free money, but with high interest loans. Which means that these companies will have to eventually pay the government back, and then some.

    • 3 years ago
  • rachelmaechel
    • 0
      rachelmaechel  
    • rachelmaechel:

      Thanks Burbian. very understandable.
      I think exceptions should be called for in dire circumstance. These are debts that can/will never be re payed...with or without interest.
      Money sucks. I just want a simple life.

    • 3 years ago
  • Xomeron
  • kadugen
  • MizPiz
  • Path_o_Logic
    • 0
      Path_o_Logic  
    • kadugen:

      Actually, from a corporate point-of-view, it worked pretty well. All of the corporations bailed out by the Nazi government of Germany during the 1930s and 1940s are still in business today. They all changed their names after WWII for political reasons but they're still around.

      The people of Germany took the brunt of the suffering; not the businesses. And that is precisely what is happening in America right now.

      When government and business conspire against the populace, it's called fascism. We’re watching America change into one right now. Alas, Americans today are in just as big a state of denial about it as Germans were in the 1930s.

    • 3 years ago
  • rachelmaechel
  • rachelmaechel
    • 0
      rachelmaechel  
    • rachelmaechel:

      thanks. let me ponder the inflation thing. But if they can bring down the WTC in secret.... then they most certainly could find a way to sneak money back into the system without us knowing. No rise in interest rates.
      They add extra money all the time anyways for other 'reasons'
      I think this reason should count too.

      ok im being naive. ill let it go

    • 3 years ago
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