Have you read the news? I used to work for AIG in the 90's, when I lived in New York. It was the first time in my life I earned stock in a company I worked for. Here's a capture of the stock ticker from this morning:
For those of you who don't read these things, I would like to point out that one year ago, the stock was valued at approximately US$70--today it opened at about two bucks. I apparently would not be well-suited for a career in speculative finance.
If you haven't read the article from the Times, I'll like to call your attention to some things I find interesting (as in the Chinese curse, 'may you live in interesting times'). The Federal Reserve Bank bailed out the financial giant in exchange for nearly an 80% share of the company. Now, then--the Fed gets its money from--who? Oh yeah, me. From the taxes I pay for the activities of a government I don't support. (God, I wish I had the balls for a little Civil Disobedience.)
So, if the crash of AIG stock is the rock, here is the hard place: I am paying the Fed to bail out a company that took my money and lost it. If/when the company gets back in the black, it will be due to an involuntary infusion of my money into the company. And who will make the profit? The Fed. Oh, sure, I am going to see a slight increase (again, that's IF the company pulls out of the dive), but multiply that increase by thousands and thousands of shares, and you will see what the Fed will gain out of it.
Don't get what I'm trying to say? (I am not always clear when I'm ranting.) Go read this article--he's a financial writer, and has put it much more eloqently in his review of the situation. Bottom line is, the Fed stands to make a ton of money off of my tax dollars, and they are under no obligation to return the interest like the banks they "support". Will they thank me? Unlikely. Will I get a kiss? I would bet my AIG stock that I won't.
2 comments:
As you well know... The Federal Reserve is about as Federal as Federal Express...
Here's some more stuff to put the bile back into the back of your mouth...
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
http://www.freedomtofascism.com/
This kind of stuff makes me a little sick.
It's not like the Crysler Bailout back in our day, that actually helped save jobs, and create a few. All this will do is make rich people more rich, and poor more poor. The 'Last Hurrah' of the office-holders, I suspect.
Yup, there is very little difference remaining between the current state of our society and that of early 19th century Victorian England. Except that in our current situation the oppressed don't really seem to mind.
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