September 17, 2008

I've lost track. How many hundreds of billions in housing gambling losses has the US government now saddled your children with? AIG gets $80 billion

Step right up! Who's next!



side note - $80 billion would pay for 1.6 million teachers at $50,000 a year. $80 billion would provide meals for ten years for 4.3 million homeless people at $5 a meal. $80 billion would pay the tuition for 3.3 million students to attend a 4-year public school at $6,000 a year. $80 billion would be a massive incentive pool to jumpstart solar, wind and alternative energy research. $80 billion is $266 for every American.

54 comments:

Anonymous said...

they (we) are in for 85 Billion and you know they will put more in if need be because they need to protect the tax payers 85 billion.... AIG is to big to fail (I am getting sick and tire of hearing that).

Anonymous said...

first it was 40 billion, then 65 billion, and now 85 billion. I hope they are sure of this number.

Anonymous said...

So far I have added up 1 trillion in bailouts and loans from the Bail-out team .The amount might be higher if you consider the short term loans the Feds are giving on junk and of course the blank checks that will go ever higher and higher .

I say let all these Wall Street firms go Bk and the ones that are left standing can be the new Wall Street .

blogger said...

Check out this video - Cramer predicted the destruction of the western world capital markets if AIG went under

Wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUnIyH1jVhw

So, seriously, who is still out there that's too big to fail?

blogger said...

Oh, one more little thing

The world no longer trusts America. And is blaming America for destroying their economies too:

http://tinyurl.com/5hudfy

The collapse of the U.S. economy threatens the entire world

Lost Cause said...

The pilferage continues...

Anonymous said...

Keith-

Really you are linking to a Russian newspaper? The US politicians are pretty corrupt, however they are a bunch of choir boys compared to Russian politicians.

-MB

blogger said...

I'm showing you a bit of how this is being reported around the world. Because I know in America they don't let you see stuff like that.

All around the world, the perception is their troubles were caused by poor people getting loans they couldn't pay back. No, that's not correct, but it's how it's perceived.

In England, where property prices are in freefall and tens of thousands in Finance (11% of UK GDP) are losing their jobs - it's because of the "subprime crisis".

Reporting around the world is awful. Either reporters are idiots, or the media is corrupt. OR both.

But if you want the perception - the perception is that the economic meltdown happening all over the world is the fault of the United States.

The world is about to hate us, and George Bush, even more.

Anonymous said...

Keith-

Too late man the world already hates us because of Iraq (they have a point).


-MB

Anonymous said...

4,500,000,000,000.00 is probably what this is going to net out, and this isn't including the war.

Well we've got about 300,000,000 people but with about 10% illegals that's about 270,000,000 left, but you have to take into consideration the poor bastards that are under the poverty level so I'll just assumed that 15% are at the level, so don't quote me on accuracy....

So with that taken into consideration, that leaves about 229,500,000 that aren't illegal and under the poverty level. So it's pretty simple math, and it's probably very low but how does $19,607.84 sound for a kick in the nutz?

So regardless of what you make a year, you currently work about 4 months out of the year as a SLAVE, paying for the b.s. federal reserve interest, etc. So add on another 20K of liability....

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8858/crunchos9.jpg

Anonymous said...

Hehehe...All hail the United Socialist States of America. At least Chavez only nationalizes profitable companies...

Where is all this money comming from? I fear for the future value of the dollar...


PJ

Anonymous said...

Don't worry. Jeez. Didn't you know Palin can field dress a moose?!?

Anonymous said...

It strikes me that I've been a rather ungrateful European about the financial problems so far so let me make amends:

Thank you American taxpayers.

All of you.

Anonymous said...

come on dude, you cannot be surprised by this. besides who cares about $85B more money, all they have to do is print it. easy, breezy.

stop worrying and go buy a new tv man.

Anonymous said...

Reporting around the world is awful. Either reporters are idiots, or the media is corrupt. OR both.

=====

Is this the same media that is in love with Barrack Obama? And is this the same media that keeps telling me I have to vote for Obama or else I'm racist?

Anonymous said...

Youre in rare form over at americapanic today Keith keep it up

Anonymous said...

Keith,
I've lost track, too.
Please, can we have a HousingPANIC tote board?

I envy you in a way...I'd much rather be watching the great unwind from another country.

Anonymous said...

What would be the outcome if the government didn't help AIG and the others? We'd have a complete economic collapse. I'm guessing Americans would be poorer without the emergency package.

Either way, American taxpayers lose.

Anonymous said...

Free gubermint cheese AND insurance!

Anonymous said...

I'm depressed today.I just found out my wife has been gargleing the neighbors balls.Why I was out trying to sell homes in this god awful market she has the nerve to destroy me.Times have been tough I admit.I haven't had a check in 6 months.She wants a new coach bag.I am going out looking at bridges today.

Anonymous said...

"What would be the outcome if the government didn't help AIG and the others? We'd have a complete economic collapse."

Wow Keith!!! Cramer himself is reading and responding to your blog. Congrats!! You've hit the big time!

Funny how we have all these bankruptcy laws and judicial procedures in place to ensure an orderly and proper distribution of pain and assets in the face of credit problems, but no one in power, the same guys who came up with and maintain these rules, have any faith that they will work.

consultant said...

80 billion could build a world class transportation system in the top 25 metro areas in the country.

I've said it before, if you vote Republican in November, you are certified insane.

Anonymous said...

HP'ers, you are all SUCKERS! I live in Chicago and bought a townhouse I could not afford. Everytime the price went up, the banks begged me to take out a HELOC loan. I lived life to the fullest; the best clothes, a boat, luxury vacations, etc...

I have not made a mortgage payment in ELEVEN MONTHS. The banks already own seven townhouses and three single family houses in my subdivision and thus I guess then don't want to add another one to the books.

I have no intention of every paying back my debts. The only debts I have paid off are my student loans and I pay my taxes, water bills and local taxes. You HP'ers are suckers. Thanks for financing my lifestyle and quit crying over all of the bailouts.

Anonymous said...

Keith- who cares if the rest of the world hates us? And who the hell told them to lend us trillions of dollars in the first place? No one put a gun to the Chinese, Russians, Western Europeans and forced them to lend all of that money to us. Besides, America is too great of a nation to fail! We will bounce back.

Anonymous said...

How many hundreds of Billions?

Off the top of my head:

Bush changed the rules so that people who walk away from their homes don't pay taxes on the loan money they don't pay back (I know that we don't normally complain when the little guy gets a break, but the fact is that the bank/mortgage company gets a tax break for losing money, no one else is going to pay the tax, the government was counting on getting these taxes and now won't and the resulting deficit is spread out amoung all of us, which is a problem) - guesstimate of 100 billion

The economy recovery act tax refund for everyone - guesstimate of 100 billion

Bear Sterns bailout - about 100 billion

Country Wide buyout deal finalized/ bailout - assume something was promised that puts the American citizen on the hook but can't find out what yet - ?

Help the cities deal with forclosures (from the Fannie Mae bailout act) - about 300 billion

Help people stay in their homes funds/rules(from the Fannie Mae bailout act) - about 300 billion

Chrysler tax break (from the Fannie Mae bailout act) - guesstimate of 0.1 billion (in the noise I know, we are in the world of "a hundred billion here, a hundred billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money", but still)

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout (guess from where) - about 200 billion to date (with much more to go)

Merril Lynch bailout - assume something was promised that puts the American citizen on the hook but can't find out what yet - ?

AIG bailout - about 80 billion for now

I'm sure I'm missing others.

about 1.2 trillion so far it looks like.

That's something like 4000 bucks of additional US deficit per US citizen.

And all those children under 12 are on the hook for it and haven't even started to pay the taxes to pay it off yet. They are such deadbeats!

Don't they know they have to pay into the system so that the CEOs of Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Bear Sterns, Merril, Citi, Bank of America, JP Morgan, .... can all make 20 million or more a year for such a fine job they do? And then walk away into the sunset for a nice retirement - that stuff doesn't come for free! Somebody has to pay the bill! And all those children that are on the hook just go around playing all day instead of working their butts off to pay the debt that makes this all possible. Oh well, their day will come.

Anonymous said...

WE WARNED YOU LAST TIME...

SHORT-SELLING OF LOSER COMPANIES WILL NOT BE TOLERATED...

COMPANIES ARE ENTITLED TO MAKE A PROFIT AND SCREW PEOPLE...

IF THEY DON'T MAKE A PROFIT, THEY'RE ENTITLED TO SOCIALIZE THE LOSSES...

IF YOU ATTEMPT TO SCREW THESE LOSER COMPANIES BY SHORT-SELLING, WE WILL PROSECUTE YOU...

WE'RE SERIOUS THIS TIME...

DID YOU SEE CRAMER'S LATEST RANT ABOUT IT???

THAT'S HOW SERIOUS WE ARE...

YOU CAN'T WIN, WE WILL BAIL THEM OUT AND SCREW YOU EVERY TIME...

AND WE'LL DO IT WITH YOUR TAX MONEY...

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT...

DOPES!!!

Anonymous said...

Keith is baaaaack!
Of the 5 big American investment banks...there is now 2.
I wonder if people understand that one of the causes of the Great Depression was investments banks using commercial deposits as funding. Guess what...we're back. We repealed Glass/ Steagall in the 90's and now we have our 3 leading commercial banks C, JPM,BAC, by deposits....with LARGE investment bank divisions.
fox - henhouse?
What did Santayana say?

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm not for all these tax-payer bail-outs, but if AIG would fail, it would be catastrophic for the economy.

So many companies caught up in greed, makes you wonder just how many companies do we have here left who make there money honestly.

In a world run mostly by crooks, we unfortunately only have crooks to vote for these days.

Anonymous said...

Nope - they aren't sure of anything - there is still ALOT of financial rot to clear through these days.

They will saddle future generations with as much debt as needed to clear this mess up when needed.


Anonymous said...
first it was 40 billion, then 65 billion, and now 85 billion. I hope they are sure of this number.

Anonymous said...

Who needs teachers- we need more fast food places!

Anonymous said...

See the US does believe in Socialized Insurance just not Health Insurance.

Anonymous said...

I think the tab is now at $900 billion. I read that this morning. I believe it includes bailout of Bear Sterns, Freddie and Fannie, and now AIG. Am i missing someone? I am so happy that I as a citizen and taxpayer can help out the little guys in this world. Republicans might not believe in social welfare but they sure do believe in corporate welfare. All hail the corporate masters.
bastards.

Anonymous said...

Oh, one more thing: the whole too big to fail is a huge problem. If a company is too big to fail then it was too big to begin with and should have never gotten that big and powerful. aren't monopolies illegal? Anyway, there is a great article by Joseph Stiglitz.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/17/stiglitz.crisis/index.html#cnnSTCText

Anonymous said...

How come this isn't shown for what it truly is ... Socialism. I personally am not an anti-socialism fanatic. But bailing out companies who CHOSE to make bad decisions is somehow better than bailing out someone who has a random case of cancer ? Someone please explain.

Paige Turner said...

RE: The world no longer trusts America. And is blaming America for destroying their economies too:

http://tinyurl.com/5hudfy


The Russian newspaper article was right on the money.

So was Nikita Khrushchev when he said: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you..."

V.L.

Anonymous said...

This won't be enough. When the government gets involved, the feeding trough for the criminals, gets even bigger. The federal till has been burglarized.

Anonymous said...

Given all the options I'll take the $266, thanks. It's my money and I'm not interested in feeding bums or paying tuition for people who aren't willing to do what it takes to put themselves through college. And don't even get me started on the public school system. The private school I send my kids to doesn't seem to "need" a brand-new brick and glass masterpiece every five years.

consultant said...

"Besides, America is too great of a nation to fail! We will bounce back."

How can we bounce back when most of the people posting here will not even take the time to get a Google Identity?

Most people want something for nothing. That's what's killing us.

Obama/Biden 08

Anonymous said...

"keith: So, seriously, who is still out there that's too big to fail?"

it's not that they're too big; it's that they insure risk. without risk insurance, the buyer bears all the risk and would want higher interest (on bonds for example).

Anonymous said...

the NY Governor in the video has asked for "zero growth budgets" for the next five years! ouch!

SOURCE: http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S569267.shtml

so his talk of "a quick recovery" have no bearing to his executive actions.

Anonymous said...

The thought occured to me as I was composing a poll for the Daily Reckoning message board that the likeliest way for the US government to partly inflate it's way out these debts is to create electronic money within Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (and now within AIG too). Those companies are accounting messes, and the government can easily tell its auditors to not look to closely at certain areas.

Voila: instead of hemoraging money, these concerns will post modest gains, probably eventually becoming large gains.

What do you all think of that possibility?

Anonymous said...

Free market capitalism's finest hour. The paring of the dead wood to make way for new growth...

Oh wait, we are just bondoing the dead wood!!!

And I am paying for the bondo!!!!

Anonymous said...

Arrest the American homeowner!

Yes, those that got home equity line of credits and went on a meth-like shopping spree. The ones that lied and purchased 3 or 4 extra homes as lotto-investments.

THEY ARE THE REAL CROOKS HERE.

Stop blaming everybody else when deep inside it was the AMERICAN consumer that screwed it all. The banks and wall street were just GREEDY facilitators of this bog mess.

Liars, cheaters, crooks you name it. Stop fooling yourselves !

Too bad we don;t have enough jails!

Anonymous said...

AMEN anon 10:05. Post of the day.

Too bad that Prez. Obama will reward those assholes with a bailout that will make the Freddie/Fannie/AIG bailout seem like loose change.

Vote for Obama and say goodbye to this country for good. Not that McCain's great, but compared to Obama he's George Washington.

Chris said...

I'm surprised that after looking at all of the comments, not one person has pointed out that AIG is supposed to pay the money back through asset sales, at an interest rate exceeding 11%, to the federal government, and the fed owns about 80% of the equity. It's going to be one of the few times that the government will actually make money on something.
I'm not saying it was right for the feds to save AIG; I'm just saying that the taxpayer is not hung out to dry on this particular deal.

Anonymous said...

80 billion, huh? Gee, I wonder who's pocket is this going to come out of?

Anonymous said...

Too Big To Fail

http://www.crackthecode.us/images/TooBigToFail.jpg

Anonymous said...

They would like you to believe that the government will not lose on the AIG deal ,but the value they are placing on AIG good assets are high book value .

Lost Cause said...

$85 billion is more than the current market cap of UPS, Amgen, McDonalds, Kraft Foods, Eli Lilly & Walt Disney...just to name a few.

idiot said...

So, am I, as a citizen of the USA, does this make me a stockholder in AIG?

If all these big companies lost 96% or more of their stock value, what are we saving, the furniture?

I'm so confused, but I'm an idiot.

Anonymous said...

first it was 40 billion, then 65 billion, and now 85 billion. I hope they are sure of this number.

Just like bills from my mechanic and dentist. Crooks!

Anonymous said...

The world no longer trusts America. And is blaming America for destroying their economies too

Ok then, let's start collecting royalty for our American inventions that we gave free to the world, such as internet, microchips, laser, GPS, fiber optics, electronic music, Dj profession, Personal Trainer profession, cell phone, PC, laptops, etc.

Anonymous said...

Now I have have no choice in these
government bail-outs that are made to look like business deals in favor of the taxpayer ,when they are losers designed to pay off more loses from loans ,

I'm not use this this sort of government interference in business
in the form of bail-outs or actually grants of public funds in effect .
Weird shit

Anonymous said...

Chris,

The government will still fuck it up and lose money.