AIG
 

Why the fuck are we still pumping money into that sucking black hole? grrrrrrr :mad:

Is anyone else upset about that?

I was pretty amazed to see their 4th quarter figures - a loss of $99 BILLION (I guess that is in Aussie Dollars, so ... $62 BILLION then).

Seriously, how the #$%* did you manage that?

ETA:

Allowing 20 working days per month, this means the peeps at AIG lost $1,000,000,000 per day for three straight months.

No, really, how the #$%* did they manage that???

Why? Because someone is sucking someone else's U-Know-What.

I find it disconcerting that we will do THIS but not help out our neighbor. I guess some people believe AIG is more worthy somehow.

I say shoot them all and let God sort 'em out. Let's begin with Madoff and follow up with the heads of the Big Three.

I was at work today, talking to filthy assistant:

:mad2:

I will NEVER, as long as I live, vote democrat again. I will not vote GOP. I WILL FUCKING VOTE FOR HAROLD STASSEN BECAUSE HE'S DEAD AND CAN'T DO ANY HARM (and it's his turn) AND THEN I WILL STRONGLY CONSIDER TAKING A CRAP IN THE BALLOT BOX!

UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!

TGRR,
Mildly upset.

But he voted for Obama - ACORN registered him :eyebrow:

He was provoked.

But seriously. He gave the SAME election speech for 48 YEARS. Let's give him a shot. We can just prop him up in the Oval Office and send guy in with a shop-vac once a week to clean up the gooey bits. He'd be the perfect president. Quiet, constitutional, and only makes a mess about 3' across.

TGRR,
Unappreciated Political GENIUS.

I voted for Ralph Nader 3 times... :D

Thanks for electing Bush!

At the time I thought it was more important to vote my heart, morally and ethically. I was of the opinion that maybe things needed to get really bad before we could change the system. Maybe now we will find out, because things are really, really bad.

I have always thought that, if people would vote for who they really believed was the best candidate, instead of voting for the lesser of two evils, we could change the system. But people are too afraid to vote outside of the two party system. And that is sad.

lol

About AIG, they lost about a million dollars A MINUTE in the last quarter. Again, why the fuck are we giving them more money? Shouldn't we just take over the damn thing and fire all the people at the top? Shouldn't we be PROSECUTING people? grrrr.

Politics is the art of the possible, and political realities are still realities. Expecting the people to act in their own best interests is the fundamental flaw with communism and laissez faire capitalism. It does not allow for pack mentality and perversity (ie, the tendency to do something definitely NOT in your own self interest).

We should be EATING people. Or at least tar and feathering them.

The money that showed up as lost in the last quarter, was actually lost a year or more ago.

The reason they are propping AIG up is that if it goes down the loses they will continue to report would transfer to dozens, maybe hundreds of institutions and many of them would go down.

The total loss numbers won't change whether it's one or a bunch of institutions, but public perception which is important to recovery, is less damaged with a smaller number of failures.

If they were serious about solving the financial crisis, they would stop dicking around and just nationalize the thing already. Oh, and then they'd be working to put safeguards in place to make sure they were not just dropping money into a black hole of debt.

But nooooo, Geithner and Larry Summers know better! I mean, just look at Lithuania, Summers managed to double the suicide rate and nearly cause the country to vote the Communists back into power with his financial genius. What could possibly go wrong?

What he said. I'm guessing hundreds of institutions, the world over, collapse of which would cause serious social instability (to put it mildly).

They're going to fail anyway.

But why not do as much damage as we can? Hell with it, just hand the treasury over to these bastards, so they can take bonuses and buy jets.

Oh, wait, we already did that.

The Flaw in the System: The Bankers Don't Care About the Banks
I stated before, the rich never cared about the little guy, but now they don't care about America, either. The money, only the money... the way to get their attention is take away the money.

And maybe 100 lashes.

Well, so much for unregulated capitalism. And a big thanks to both parties for making this possible.

I knew one of the guys at work was insured by AIG (house), so I asked him if he is still with them. He said yes but they changed their name to 21st Century Insurance. I don't know if they are ashamed of the AIG name, have been spun off, or what.

Can it get any worse with these guys? Really.

"...On Monday, we the taxpayers, through our Treasury Department, committed to further AIG restructuring by injecting $30 billion and taking an approximate 78% stake in the company. Perhaps the company and its officers and employees should be thankful.

Instead, on Friday, AIG sued the United States for over $330 million in a tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service. Really... I don't make this up. It is case number 1:09 CV 01871 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York filed by the law firm of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP...." http://businessinsure.about.com/b/20...nd-sues-us.htm

And then there's this. Can you say HYPOCRISY? This guy ought to rot in prison. Seriously.

"Former American International Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Maurice “Hank” Greenberg accused the insurer in a lawsuit of securities fraud after it reported the biggest loss by a publicly traded U.S. firm.

Greenberg sued yesterday in federal court in Manhattan, saying the company’s “material misrepresentations and omissions” caused him to acquire New York-based AIG shares in his deferred compensation profit-participation plan at an “artificially inflated price.”

The complaint came on the same day that AIG CEO Edward Liddy told Bloomberg News that Greenberg was at the helm during the formation of AIG’s financial products unit, which sold derivatives that cost the company more than $30 billion in writedowns and prompted a government rescue. After reporting its fourth-quarter loss widened to $61.7 billion, AIG announced it reached an agreement to restructure its federal bailout..."
get the full story here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...fqQ&refer=home

Yes, they should nationalize some of the banks, and they should definitely nationalize this piece of crap. Either that, or STOP GIVING THEM MONEY! I don't mind the stimulus money, and I think we should be doing more there, but I'm sick to death of hearing about these pricks doing this crap. Just investigate them already and throw their asses in jail. That's where they should be.

Oh, and while we're at it, let's look at Countrywide. A lot of people like to blame Freddie and Fannie, but the subprime mortgages started with Countrywide and companies like that. Now they're cashing in on their mistakes. Really, can it get any worse?
http://www.startribune.com/business/...D3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

What's that about Larry Summers? You got a link where I can read about it?

I have to agree with this. Though there are other factors beyond pack mentality at work in creating perverse responses. There are also conflicting loyalties/interests at work. Often it's a matter of balancing those conflicts in whichever manner feels most comfortable, or possible at the time. For instance, gender and class often offer competing political claims for an individual to take account of. Personal (or class) financial health may compete with national financial health. Many people have conflicting ideals when it comes to social and economic policies.

If social and economic policies were more fair and equal, then maybe they wouldn't have to choose between what's good for them and what's good for society.

Put it up for auction - sell of the valuable worthwhile pieces and scrap the rest. Thats the reality of whats going to happen eventually anyway. Do it now. Rip off the band-aid, its a terminal patient.

Simple solution: Quit bailing out failing companies. Strong companies with good management survive while weak companies perish. There will be more pain in the long run by pumping money into failing companies than just letting them go into bankruptcy.

What is unfair and unequal and what changes would you propose?

I completely agree with that.

The system we have now is unfair to the majority of the people and works in favor of the top few. I have said all of this before, but here goes again...

*When someone who owns a sports team can get a new stadium built with money supplied by taxpayers, and then gets to keep all the profits, that is unfair to everyone but the owner of the team, and perhaps the athletes, who get giant salaries. Why should anyone have to pay for that, other than the people who profit from it? The owners are rich. They should pay for it themselves.
*When a large corporation like WalMart can get away with not paying for health insurance for their workers, and they end up on medicaid subsidized with taxpayers money, that isn't fair. WalMart is one of the richest, most successful corporations ever. The owners/executives of WalMart are extremely rich. Why should taxpayers be burdened with that?
*When pharmaceutical companies can charge as much as they do in THIS country (but not in any other country), but their R&D is subsidized with taxpayer money, that isn't fair.
*When rich people who have millions or billions of dollars can get away paying less than someone who makes 30k/year, that isn't fair.
*When taxpayers end up having to bail out corporations because they have been mismanaged, but the people who mismanaged them get big bonuses and bloated salaries, that isn't fair.
*When hundreds of people get laid off from work while the people at the top get bonuses and giant salaries, that isn't fair.

What would I do? Well, I'm not sure exactly how to change it, but I would try to enact policies that didn't allow any of that stuff to happen. We need to do something to curtail the greed and corruption. It's obscene, the way this crap happens, and people just put up with it. We are like blind sheep in this country going over a cliff. It's maddening.

What drives innovation? What gives people the desire to achieve, to overcome to bust their asses for 80- 100 hours a week and take all the risks needed to be successful?
Greed seems like the simplest answer to me. Can we somehow control that while not stifling it? THAT, I believe, is the challenge faced. Especially with so much global competition.

If by "successful" you mean having lots of stuff, then it's advertising.

Oh, and a small-ish penis.

Sorry Bri - I said successful nor professor ;)

Not really. Most executives could learn a lot from Steve Jobs. He is like the anti-business businessman. According to him, he usually does the opposite of what they teach in business schools these days. And Apple is #1 on the list of most respected/innovative corporations, both in the states and worldwide, according to Forbes.

:D

Whew

I think it is pretty crummy too, although it is misleading to say the teamowner takes all the profit while taxpayers paid for it. Teams either lease the use of the stadium or have put significant sums into the purchase and share the profits according to contracts agreed to by the cities in which the stadiums were built. I have the same 'not with my tax money' reaction to, though.Walmart provides insurance benefits for fulltime employees. I know they use the old 35 hour per week, part time employee escape, but the employees do choose to work there. The reason the owners are rich and the company makes huge profits is because they manage their p/l statements that tightly. Taxpayers are unfortunately stuck paying for some benefits for these low pay employers just like we do for the low pay grocery store clerk and the unemployed guy on his couch. That's the nature of the beast.
*R&D is subsidized through grants and the like but the companies spend far more in drug trials and development. They are private corporations who pay their employees to do a job. Instead of despising their profit, you should applaud it.
* Do you mean in dollars or percentages? I guarantee there is NO millionaire paying less in either category than someone making $30K/ year. That is a nice fallacy though.
* There we agree. Those companies shouldn't be bailed out. If they aren't strong enough to compete and succeed they shouldn't exist.
*Too true. That is the very hallmark of a poorly managed company that should fail.

You've thrown out the usual statements but without an idea of how to make it better they don't mean much.

Taxpayers who don't live in the area where the stadium is being built should not have to pay for it.

Even with some of the people who work full time, unless they are managers or higher ups, many of them can't afford the insurance and so they still end up on medicaid. WalMart should pay them enough to afford to buy insurance, or they should provide it to them.

Why? We are paying for a lot of the research and development, then charged extremely high prices for the very drugs we helped pay to develop. What we are paying for is advertising. Why should drug companies even be advertising? That should be between a doctor and their patient. If people really want to know about new drugs, there are plenty of ways to get information about them. Drug companies are extremely corrupt, and they are very profitable. Health care should not be about profit, it should be about helping people.

Warren Buffet has even said he pays less than his secretary. Not in actual dollars of course, but the % he pays is less than hers. That is very common.

Yeparoo.


Well, we could start by putting some regulations back into place to stop corruption, have serious oversight and transparency, and we could investigate and try people who break the law or are unethical with regard to how they conduct business. We could reform the tax code. We could stop subsidizing private corporations, or companies that make more than $500,000/year. We could provide health care for everyone so the burden doesn't fall on corporations, and then charge them a higher tax rate to help pay for it. We could stop bailing out companies that fail. We could start enforcing antitrust laws, and break up companies that are too big to fail. And, we could have some kind of regulations about how executives are paid, and have a living wage for workers, so people make enough money to live and afford things. And lastly, we could reform the advertising industry. how is that for a start?

I love this idea - Lets start here

Barney Frank is the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee.
Committee Members
The #1 guy responsible for oversight. And paid rather handsomely for it as well. Do you think he owes us a refund too?

Here is just a tidbit from the site:
Wha Wha What?????

That's fortunate, considering what is taught in business schools is crap of the first order.

The corporation I work for won't hire an MBA. Everyone in management is some form of chemical engineer. But it's not an American company, and is thus not quite as stupid.

Why? It's the only one that works.

Yes, it's called regulation. And it worked just fine from the 30s until Carter and all the dumbfucks after him.

Yes, I do think people in government, who should've been doing their job bu weren't, should also be held accountable.

Advertising is the bane of existance.

It doesn't work in a very good way though. Advertising is part of the problem. It should be reformed as well.

Whatare you talking about?

Good way? There is no "good way" in advertising under capitalism. There is "successful" and "unsuccessful". If that is unacceptable, you'll have to find a new system.

It's about something I posted earlier. You have to go back and read the post.

Advertising is the bane of an enlightened society.

Are you talking about it in general or something specific?

Bullshit.

Good thing I don't live in Tibet, then.

TGRR,
Would not have known to avoid "The Angry Whopper", had he not seen the commercial.

Check out these links to learn how pharmaceutical companies really work and how they are screwing us.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
"...Third, the industry is hardly a model of American free enterprise. To be sure, it is free to decide which drugs to develop (me-too drugs instead of innovative ones, for instance), and it is free to price them as high as the traffic will bear, but it is utterly dependent on government-granted monopolies—in the form of patents and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved exclusive marketing rights. If it is not particularly innovative in discovering new drugs, it is highly innovative—and aggressive—in dreaming up ways to extend its monopoly rights..."
"...Drug industry expenditures for research and development, while large, were consistently far less than profits. For the top ten companies, they amounted to only 11 percent of sales in 1990, rising slightly to 14 percent in 2000. The biggest single item in the budget is neither R&D nor even profits but something usually called "marketing and administration"—a name that varies slightly from company to company. In 1990, a staggering 36 percent of sales revenues went into this category, and that proportion remained about the same for over a decade.[13] Note that this is two and a half times the expenditures for R&D.

These figures are drawn from the industry's own annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and to stockholders, but what actually goes into these categories is not at all clear, because drug companies hold that information very close to their chests. It is likely, for instance, that R&D includes many activities most people would consider marketing, but no one can know for sure. For its part, "marketing and administration" is a gigantic black box that probably includes what the industry calls "education," as well as advertising and promotion, legal costs, and executive salaries—which are whopping. According to a report by the non-profit group Families USA, the for-mer chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Charles A. Heimbold Jr., made $74,890,918 in 2001, not counting his $76,095,611 worth of unexercised stock options. The chairman of Wyeth made $40,521,011, exclusive of his $40,629,459 in stock options. And so on..."
"...This is an industry that in some ways is like the Wizard of Oz—still full of bluster but now being exposed as something far different from its image. Instead of being an engine of innovation, it is a vast marketing machine. Instead of being a free market success story, it lives off government-funded research and monopoly rights. Yet this industry occupies an essential role in the American health care system, and it performs a valuable function, if not in discovering important new drugs at least in developing them and bringing them to market. But big pharma is extravagantly rewarded for its relatively modest functions. We get nowhere near our money's worth. The United States can no longer afford it in its present form..."

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2001/july/n..._debunks_d.php
"...¤ The actual after-tax cash outlay - or what drug companies really spend on R&D - for each new drug (including failures) according to the DiMasi study is approximately $108 million. (That's in year 2000 dollars, based on data provided by drug companies.) [See Section I]

¤ A simpler measure - also derived from data provided by the industry - suggests that after-tax R&D costs ranged from $69 million to $87 million for each new drug created in the 1990s, including failures. [See Section II]

¤ Industry R&D costs are reduced by taxpayer-funded research, which has helped launch the most medically important drugs in recent years and many of the best-selling drugs, including all of the top five sellers in one recent year.

¤ An internal National Institutes of Health (NIH) document, obtained by Public Citizen through the Freedom of Information Act, shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, taxpayer-funded scientists or foreign universities conducted 85 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the top five selling drugs in 1995. [See Section III]..."

http://survivreausida.net/a4915-rx-r...drug-indu.html
"...Public Citizen based the study on an extensive review of government and industry data and a report obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Among the report’s key findings :

* The actual after-tax cash outlay - what drug companies really spend on R&D for each new drug (including failures) - is approximately $110 million (in year 2000 dollars.) This is in marked contrast with the $500 million figure PhRMA frequently touts.
* The NIH document shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to the development of top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, U.S. taxpayer-funded scientists conducted at least 55 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the five top-selling drugs in 1995.
* Public Citizen found that, at most, about 22 percent of the new drugs brought to market in the past two decades were innovative drugs that represented important therapeutic advances. Most new drugs were "me-too" or copycat drugs that have little or no therapeutic gain over existing drugs, undercutting the industry’s claim that R&D expenses are used to discover new treatments for serious and life-threatening illnesses.

A second report issued today by Public Citizen, The Other Drug War : Big Pharma’s 625 Washington Lobbyists, examines how the U.S. drug industry spent an unprecedented $262 million on political influence in the 1999-2000 election cycle. That includes $177 million on lobbying, $65 million on issue ads and $20 million on campaign contributions. The report shows that :

* The drug industry hired 625 different lobbyists last year — or more than one lobbyist for every member of Congress — to coax, cajole and coerce lawmakers. The one-year bill for this team of lobbyists was $92.3 million, a $7.2 million increase over what the industry spent for lobbyists in 1999..."
"...The drug industry is stealing from us twice," Clemente said. "First it claims that it needs huge profits to develop new drugs, even while drug companies get hefty taxpayer subsidies. Second, the companies gouge taxpayers while spending millions from their profits to buy access to lawmakers and defeat pro-consumer prescription drug legislation..."

It's my opinion. We are bombarded every second of every day with advertisements for things we don't need. People have too much stuff. And if you don't have the very latest stuff, then you won't be happy and you certainly won't be cool. We are being brainwashed into thinking stuff will make us happy (well, some of us anyway. The rest of us are asleep when it comes to this particular topic). It's part of the reason why we're in such a mess now financially, and why the world is toxic. (Do you even know how many toxic chemicals go into the creation of cell phones and computers and other electronics? And people go through them like candy. Do you know how many tons of waste are created just to make one ton of stuff? Do you realize the implications of that?) And advertising, since it makes people yearn and want things, also creates envy and greed. Do you see the implications of that? I see it everywhere. Even as aware as I am of the problem, I am not immune to it.

No, advertising is definitely the herion of the masses. umhuh.

None of us are immune. I have a computer, television...but I don't buy into the "I must have everything" mantra. I used to be a rabid consumerist, then I realized most of the stuff doesn't matter, in the long run.

Kimberly-Clark spent $25,000,000, in its third quarter, on advertising to persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands of toilet paper. :rolleyes:

The Dollar Store rocks!

I only buy the stuff with more actual paper to each roll. :)

Advertising is just a method of informing the public of your product and trying to generate desire/demand. No different to shouting from a market stall.

That's absolutely true. However, the stupidity of the howling mob we call "the bulk of the human race" is no reason to deny the right to advertise a product.

Caveat emptor, and all that good stuff. Or caveat dumbassicus.

No, advertising is the pusher, for the opiates that are the religion of the masses (to twist a phrase).

Thanks Dana for the one rational unemotionally charged post in all of this.

I wonder how we would know about the newest, most updated and perhaps SAFER environmentally friendly products around if we didn't have advertising. Perhaps we could all just watch and wait for FOX or MSNBC to tell us. Yeh, I'm sure Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow &/or Bill O'Reilly are really looking out for anyone other than themselves or their agenda. :eyebrow:

I didn't say we shouldn't have any advertising, I said I thought the industry should be reformed. And I stand by that.

Advertising is responsible for creating a nation of self-absorbed, insecure, seriously fucked up people who can't think for themselves. You really should read Adbusters sometime. Go to Barnes and Noble and sit and read one. It's a great magazine.

Advertising is NOT responsible at all. If you are too stupid to know what you need or don't need thats on YOU, not the advertising industry.

i would suggest the intent of most advertising, from packaging/labeling to tv/print media, is to sell.

The role of government regulation of some advertising is to more fully inform the consumer.

Caveat emptor is fine and dandy, but not always possible.

If I want "all natural" beef, with no antibiotics or chemicals, government labeling (advertising) regulations provide a level of assurance beyond the manufacturer's word.

If I am considering medication, the regulatory requirement to list possible side effects (not only on the product, but in ads) provides additional information that the manufacturer might not otherwise make available.

I was raised on advertising. Before the age of ten, I even recruited friends for TV commercials. One was featured on nationwide TV.

My father quit advertising when the FTC stepped in. They had to start telling the truth. It took all the fun out of it. Well, he was exaggerating. They simply had to not lie so blatantly.

Advertising is also what Limbaugh does. Because so many have opinions without first learning facts, then many (ie the most religious) will deny when facts and numbers finally arrive. That is Limbaugh's job. Tell the most naive how to think first. When reality appears, these most extremists will aggressively deny - even attack the messenger.

Need an example? See how ozone layer destruction was denied for so long. See discussions here in 2002 about Saddam's WMDs. Or see the few here some years ago who avvidly claimed Chevy is a good car even after facts and numbers said otherwise.

Why do many here use fluoride toothpaste? Or believe Pepto-Bismol’s pink coating relieves intestinal problems? I personally watched it all happen as a kid.

Childhood leukemia is traceable to electric power lines? Vitamin C averts common colds? Power strip protectors protect computers? All myths widely believed only because it was the first thing they were told. That is what advertising is all about. Get you to believe cigarette smoking is good for your health - so that many would later deny the Surgeon General's report. Advertising works because so many - a majority - believe the first thing they are told; don't first demand numbers and facts.

I was raised watching this happen – which is why I so often am a minority opposed to popular beliefs: ie Saddam’s WMDs, GM products, what MBAs do, the murder of seven Challenger and seven Columbia astronauts, etc.