Monday Morning Musing

Have you heard that AIG filed a suit against the Federal Government for what they claimed was unfair terms of the 2008 bailout? In case you've forgotten that debacle, AIG is the insurance company that made multibillion-dollar bad bets on mortgages and put us on the brink of financial collapse. They were given $182 billion in bailout money, which current ads from AIG are saying that they have paid back, with interest. They also take thirty seconds of our time to let us know how much they are doing  to help victims of the terrible storm Sandy.

A little tug on the heartstrings to keep us from thinjing about the knife they proposed to stick into our pocketbooks. Keep in mind that any successful suit of the government means money out of our pockets, more money on top of what already came out of our pockets.

Talking to a friend about this, he commented, "That takes a lot of chutzpah. The operational definition of chutzpah being 'murdering your parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the courts because you are an orphan.'"

Thomas G. Donlan made the same statement in his article in Barrons, where he also wrote, "The AIG 'rescue' was a shameful episode in U.S. financial history, one that will come back to haunt the taxpayers and the government's creditors the next time an insurance company, a bank, a nonbank, a government-sponsored enterprise, or a Ponzi scheme seems too big to fail and too big to dismember, and is assuredly too big to succeed." 

Over the weekend I learned that AIG has backed down from the suit. According to an editorial in The Dallas Morning News, "After a little shaming and angry public backlash, AIG is sheepishly bakcking off, but it's reminded us that you can't spell ingrate without AIG."

So my post today wouldn't leave you on a downbeat, I looked online for a comic strip to share. Just for fun, check out today's strip from Luann. Young people use libraries for the most interesting reasons.

Want My Vote?

Looks like we dodged the bullet one more time and the whole global financial system is not going to implode after all. The stock market has recovered somewhat, and banks are getting assistance from government. The financial life of the world goes on.

But have we learned anything from this near-disaster? Is anything going to change in the way business is conducted? Are we going to continue to over spend, over borrow, over speculate, and over lend?

And what is this bailout going to do to the national debt?

The money has to come from somewhere, and since we are already borrowing millions, maybe billions, to cover the cost of government, the cost of the war, the cost of social services, where is this extra money coming from?

I am not an economist, and some people may find my approach to global economy a bit too simplified, but I'm savvy enough to know that borrowing to solve the banking problem is a short-term fix with some serious long-term negative effects.

So, to me, balancing the federal budget has become the primary issue for the coming election and is what the government should be focused on for the foreseeable future.

And may I make a suggestion to the next president-elect, why not cancel 95 percent of the inaugural ceremonies and parties that cost millions of dollars, and ask the lobbyists who pay for most of the parties to donate those millions to the cause of saving the economy. If you thought the general public was disgusted with the AIG execs who partied hearty after their recent bailout, imagine the reaction to the lavish inaugural parties.

Whoever is willing to do that, as well as stop all non-essential spending will have my vote.