Who would have thought that a relatively small number of people who couldn’t pay their sub-prime mortages would bring about the end of the American economy as we knew it? The latest development is an extraordinary one. As CNNMoney.com put it: “In an unprecedented move, the Federal Reserve Board is lending as much as $85 billion to rescue crumbling insurer American International Group…” Translation: the government has just loaned AIG $85 billion of YOUR taxpayer dollars.
The feds will, in turn, get a 79.9% chunk of the company. It is apparently hoped that when the company is eventually liquidated, the bailout bucks will be repaid to taxpayers.

Wanna bet!!!

Of course, this now global economic mess was not really the result of some folks going belly up on their subprimes. The real cause is the absolute greed of the investment community which felt itself immune from reality after the virtual protection given it over the past seven years or so by the Bush administration.

And, let us finally put aside this myth that European and Asian nations are smarter about these sorts of things than we are. Turns out they were just as stupid, greedy and, yes, maybe even criminal!

No matter. The bottom line is, we are now the proud owners of a giant insurance company that probably will soon be no more, as well as the mortgage titans Freddi Mac and Fannie Mae.

Getting back to AIG,if you think you had a bad economic year ( and there is a pretty good chance you did) just look at “poor” AIG–it lost some $18 billion in nine months and saw the price of its stock drop more than 91%.

Where do we go from here?

Damned if I know!!! And, I think it is safe to say from the way the past few days have played out, no one else knows,either.

I keep reading how the only thing that will save the day will be the resurrection of the real estate market in this country. But I don’t buy that any more than I believe it was just the real estate debacle that caused this world-wide economic crisis.

A whole bunch of things need to be changed, big time, before the economy settles down and returns to something akin to normal. It is easy, glib even, to point the finger of blame on the subprime lender who was, after all, just trying to put a roof over his/her head and ignore the far bigger and more sinister forces at play here: lenders, speculators, regulators, to name but a few.

And, whether John McCain or Barack Obama captures the presidency, the global economy will not be nursed back to health without these other cancers being aggressively treated.

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Tags: AIG, American Insurance Group, Economy, socialism, taxpayer

The snowball that is the US and Global Financial Crisis continued to get larger Tuesday as American International Group (AIG), the nation’s largest insurer came close to collapse. Over the weekend, the Fed failed to provide a $40 Billion bridge loan that the company’s leadership had been pressing for, but late Monday night, the Fed stepped in. In exchange for an 80% ownership stake in the company, the government went against earlier promises and rescued AIG with an $85 Billion loan.

According to CNN:

Officials decided they had to act lest the nation’s largest insurer file bankruptcy. Such a move would roil world markets since AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) has $1.1 trillion in assets and 74 million clients in 130 countries. An eventual liquidation of the company is most likely, senior Fed officials said. But with the government loan, the company won’t have to go through a tumultuous fire sale.

The failure of AIG could have caused unprecedented global ripple effects, said Robert Bolton, managing director at Mendon Capital Advisors Corp. AIG is a major player in the market for credit default swaps, which are insurance-like contracts that guarantee against a company defaulting on its debt. Also, it is a huge provider of life insurance, property and casualty insurance and annuities.

“If AIG fails and can’t make good on its obligations, forget it,” Bolton said. “It’s as big a wave as you’re going to see.” AIG has had a very tough year. Rocked by the subprime crisis, the company has lost more than $18 billion in the past nine months and has seen its stock price fall more than 91% so far this year. It already raised $20 billion in fresh capital earlier this year. Its troubles stem from its sales of credit default swaps and from its subprime mortgage-backed securities holdings.

According to the International Herald Tribune:

The decision, announced by the Fed only two weeks after the Treasury Department took over the quasi-government mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is the most radical intervention in private business in the central bank’s history. With time running out after AIG failed to get a bank loan to avoid bankruptcy, Treasury Secterary Henry Paulson Jr. and the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke convened a meeting with House and Senate leaders on Capitol Hill at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to explain the rescue plan.

The decision was a remarkable turnabout by the Bush administration and Paulson, who had flatly refused over the weekend to risk taxpayer money to prevent the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the distressed sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. Earlier this year, the government bailed out another investment bank, Bear Stearns, by engineering a sale to JPMorgan Chase that left taxpayers on the hook for up to $29 billion of bad investments by Bear Stearns. The government hoped at the time that this unusual step would both calm markets and lead to a recovery by the financial system. But critics warned at the time that it would only encourage others to seek bailouts, and the eventual costs to the government would be staggering.

Was there any other option for the government? What now? Taxpayers now own Fannie, Freddie, and AIG . . . any guesses as to what’s next?

This week’s news has been the financial equivalent of a 9.5 earthquake on the richter scale . . . unprecedented!

Tags: AIG, American Insurance Group, fed, government bailout, paulson