AlexS

Exclusive: Big Banks' Recent Profitability Due to AIG Scam?

Although gambling and insurance both have an element of chance, there is a key difference. Insurance has a purpose of mitigating damage. You buy insurance on your house and your house burns down, the insurance will help pay for rebuilding. You buy auto insurance and you get into an accident the proceeds will help fix your car. On the other hand, if Goldman Sachs and Bear Stears bet on whether GM will go bankrupt (CDS) there is no repair of GM if one of them wins. There activity is pure gambling, no insurance about it, regardless of what they may call it.


On Apr 01 04:51 AM User 369125 wrote:

> The entire insurance 'game' is based on gambling. They gamble that
> you will never make a claim and make sure the odds are in their
> favor . If this is not an April fools joke and is in fact true,then
> AIG is just doing what is normal for any insurance company practice
> as they have done for 200 years .

Exclusive: Big Banks' Recent Profitability Due to AIG Scam?

Why do they need to "unwind" these positions? They're just bets. Gambling. Gambling debts are not enforceable by law, or so I understand. Let them bring their CDSs together and they can all get their money back, and no more. Why should taxpayers cover AIG's gambling losses? Why should they provide the banks' gains? BTW, if you want to explain it to the public, this explanation they will understand.

The Tyranny of the Shareholders

Isn't the real issue that a bankruptcy of the Big 3 automakers would leave the UAW with nothing to do? Their political friends in Congress will keep that from happening, that's for sure.

How AIG Took Down Europe

Looks like the European model of high regulation with lots of bureaucrats worked about as well as the U.S. model of relatively free markets. Once we gravitate to their system we can expect that nothing will change, as this little exercise has shown.

Since When Is Getting a Loan Being 'Bailed Out'?

The main stream media always plays with words, to emphasize the terrible, the surprising, the shocking. A lot of times they do it even if it's a lie. So the MSM coverage now is no surprise. Besides, most of them are for Obama so if they emphasize the negative now maybe people will be afraid and vote against the party associated with George Bush.

Senator Harry Reid: 'No One Knows What To Do'

Old Harry said we lost the Iraq war when we hadn't. Now he doesn't know what to do. I would suggest he resign. And take Barney and Nancy with him.

AIG Bailout: Over to Congress

I really blame a lot of this on Congress, or at least the part of Congress that decided to politicize the mission of Fannie and Freddie to include, or even emphasize, lending money to poor people who didn't have a chance of really affording their subprime loans. All so the Congress could strut and posture for the papers and for their image, etc. And those people will be re-elected and they'll do the same thing over and over because they have no accountability. For instance, the housing bill from earlier this year sets aside a portion of every Fand and Fred mortgage payment to give to community activist groups to lobby and pressure banks to give out more subprime mortgages. And Congress did this even while this crisis was unfolding. It's sickening.

AIG Bailout: Over to Congress

I'd be more in favor of it if we could take the responsible (sic) management and put them in the stocks for a while in the town square. Maybe tar and feathers would be better.