White nationalists have advanced the extremely racist argument that Blacks and Hispanics are responsible for blowing up the economy with the latest subprime mortgage meltdown, which has taken out titans in the insurance and brokerage industry. Lehman Brothers, the 3rd largest brokerage firm on Earth, was allowed to implode.
AIG, one of the world's largest insurance companies, was about to go bankrupt until socialism stepped in, as the Bush Administration bought an 80% stake in the firm. I do support nationalizing huge industrial titans like this that have proven too irresponsible to run a modern company.
AIG went down because they insured the subprime securities that investors bought against going bad. Yes, you can buy insurance on your stocks, bonds, derivatives and other financial crap. Amazing, huh?
It remains to be seen whether an $85 billion bailout of AIG is a good bargain for taxpayers. It seems that we are investing public money in this mountain of AIG's losses, no? How is the public supposed to benefit from this?
AIG investors are now scrambling around trying to figure out a way to pay back that debt in order to ward off a government socialist buyout of 80% of the stock. I do not think that they can do it. AIG is, in my opinion, insolvent. Nor do I think they will have much luck borrowing money from anyone else. Would you loan these losers any money? Get real.
Meanwhile, even after the bailout, AIG's stock is still being pounded into the dirt. I guess that bailout didn't make anyone happier about AIG stock. Everyone exposed to AIG stock in the form of pensions and other funds is scrambling to get out from under the avalanche. Pension funds are suing AIG for wiping out their holdings.
Do you own an AIG insurance policy? That's not worth much, if you ask me. States are now "reassuring" policyholders. I'd be canceling that toxic policy in a New York minute.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I do not agree with the White Nationalist racist argument that niggers* and beaners* blew up the economy.
They apparently got this argument for articles like this Village Voice piece. However, if you read the piece carefully, it does not support the WN argument at all.
Under the cover of anti-racism, Andrew Cuomo and the rest of the Clinton criminals gave the industry what it wanted - loosened regulations on whom they could loan to. "It is also worth remembering that the motive for this bipartisan ownership expansion probably had more to do with the legion of lobbyists working for lenders, brokers, and Wall Street than an effort to walk in MLK's footsteps", as the article notes.
Note that the Bush Republicans did not overturn a single one of Cuomo's "anti-racist" loosening of standards. Furthermore, as I read the article, there was no federal "mandate to loan to more Black and Brown poor people."
This argument makes it seem like Evil Big Government liberals forced prudent bankers to make loans to non-White deadbeats that they knew would go bad, loans that they themselves did not want to make. This is not the case.
The debt was already being sold and resold all over the place, and, as the article notes, even if the borrower defaulted, that was no big deal either, as they would just resell the home. Lots of money to be made all around on every step of the chain, even if the borrower defaults.
The latest insanity, where Joe Public gets to bail out a bunch of gambler criminals, is truly horrible. Basically, you and me will be forced to buy up all this bad debt from a bunch of white collar crooks, debt that is nearly worthless. For this worthless debt, we will fork over $1 trillion for a pile of stinking garbage.
Further, the crooks are absolved of all of their losses at the Mortgage Casino and free to go gamble away again. This means we are setting ourselves for this situation to recur over and over, and as long as the public bails out all losses and guarantees all gains, there is zero motivation to be prudent. Wow, isn't neoliberal capitalism a great system!
Incredibly, both parties, from the most liberal of Democrats to the most conservative of Republicans, got in on this bullshit. A particularly horrible feature of the plan that the "liberals" went along with is that there are to be no new regulations whatsoever on the financial industry. Gotta love those liberal Dems!
In this way, corporate criminals get to make all of the money they can with this sort of gambling, but then when they start losing money, you and me have to bail them out. What a bunch of fucking shit!
That's like giving me a credit card to go to the casino and I get to keep all of my winnings and any time I lose money, you all get to pay me back so I can go to the casino tomorrow. I like that deal! Let's set it up now!
*Used sardonically
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