I'm With Stupid

AITOOW is always less than impressed with the bandwidth of the so-called experts? Last night the Senates leader on economic policy resorted to politics and tried to blame the economic melt down on lack of regulation (Republicans). He even had the audacity to excuse the Democratic Senate from the 80's, 90's and last year from the blame. First off all, all the regulation in the world won't make a difference if it is not enforced (see Immigration policy). Secondly, regulation is a game of cat and mouse. It is always one step behind the next crisis. The criminals will always be smarter than legislators (that's why we have a common law system and not a system of codes). Money attracts the most cunning minds. Not public service. Thirdly, if outsized profits and securitization abuses from companies like Enron and accounting abuses from everyone didn't alert you to the hanky panky you were willfully ignorant and complacent about the problem. Try reading editorials in Newsweek, Forbes, etc. Lastly, you seem to forget that you pressured these companies into lending to minorities and other high risk individuals. The American dream should not only be for the rich (good credit), right? Remember that Elmer Fudd? Don't try and wash your hands of it. And incidentally, swaps, lack of sufficient reserve requirements, the removal of the temporary short sale restrictions and opacity in the way debt instruments are valued are areas you might want to look at now. Or maybe another censure vote against the war is of more importance. Could you also stop misrepresenting the the Fed and Treasury's moves as bail outs. They are loaning money (interest and/or repayment of principal could benefit the tax payer) or taking an equity interest at bargain prices (could benefit the tax payers). This was done with the S and L's and ended up providing some of that budget surplus you guys always cite under Clinton. I actually don't get how the shareholders (of say AIG) weren't included in the discussions. I understand these sort of material actions to require shareholder approval not just board approval. The government is taking these companies under duress at bargain prices.

Lets also shake our heads at the book cooker Hank Greenberg of AIG. He also was on Charlie Rose making one wonder if they too have the brains to run a multi-national. He never would have let this (buying sub-prime debt) happen on his watch. If you didn't know what the accountants were doing or approved of it (cheating is always an easy way to grow your stock price) as you intimated when you said "I still believe the books were properly audited", why would we believe you would have known or stopped what one of your subs were doing. Now I hope your disgrace accounts for your seemingly weak understanding of the current economic mess. You are 82 and the stress must have affected your mental acuity. But, if this was the titan of industry that made AIG, anyone could do it. I was not impressed by you. On a side note - the reason they didn't include you in the talks was one of the following: You would narc on the current board's negligence, you have no credibility, your bail out plan was not as solid as you thought or their just wasn't time to do anything but do agree with what the government had already decided was the solution. Now stop whining about the implosion of the bomb (house of cards) you created. You took shoert cuts. The new board took more. Your company was only successful because you cheated while others did not. This is karma. Now that said it does suck that a company can be evicerated if you can't get a bridge loan. But, tell that to every other company a bank has taken down because the defaulted on an interest payment or anybody that lost a house because they missed one mortgage payment.