Yes, those crazy kids over at AIG just can't hang onto a buck, er, $60 billion bucks, as it were. I don't know how many times I predicted that AIG would be back for another cash quickie, but this certainly shouldn't have come as much of a surprise.
AIG is expected to post a roughly $60 billion fourth-quarter loss on Monday, produced in large part by write-downs on certain tax assets and commercial mortgage backed securities, the source said.
The loss—which works out to about $460,000 per minute—is mostly non-cash (WTF?), the source said.
The dark overlord/insurer of the shadow economy and its opaque financial instruments is writing down billions in losses on what must amount to a daily basis given the very short amount of time that has elapsed since -sigh- the last bailout. All these recent bailouts to banks, the auto industry and insurers is making this September 2008 Hank Paulson statement look pretty quaint:
Granted, Hank Paulson is no longer Bush's man in the Treasury, but this demonstrates just how hypocritical and untrustworthy are elected leaders are. Even after uttering these fateful words, Paulson went on to bailout AIG at least once more, Citi at least once more and dozens of other zombie corporations. Can anyone pin down exactly how many trillions of dollars we've already thrown at this problem, because I can't keep track from one day to the next.
So, it has just been confirmed that AIG will receive another $30 billion lifeline:
American International Group is expected to get an additional $30 billion from the US government as part of a revised bailout package for the troubled insurance giant, a source told Reuters.
In addition, the deal would ease the terms of the previous AIG [AIG 0.42
The revision would be the latest sign of how federal regulators are having to tweak bailout packages for financial institutions deemed too big to fail as the economy and markets worsen.-0.10 (-19.23%)
] bailout and help the company pay down debt, the source said.
At least AIG will have the distinction of being the corporation to realize the largest quarterly loss EVER!! U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A. Those sneaky Brits thought they had it all sewn up with Royal Bank of Scotland, but we Yanks sure showed them!!!
As evidenced by yet ANOTHER longwinded campaign speech. There can be no doubt that the man is extremely articulate, and even inspirational, if not on a superficial level, but I can't help but wonder when we'll finally be treated to a speech that isn't reminiscent of July '08. In case you missed the memo, Barack, you've won. You simply do not need to continue stumping. America was sold on Hope and Change™ long ago, but at some point, you're going to have to bring a message that is much more severe and honest.
A few excerpts and comments/translations:
The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.
With all due respect Mr. President . . . just what in the hell are you talking about? The weight of this crisis IS determining our destiny. And that destiny is to have our tax dollars diverted to sleezy bankers and fraudster home debtors who brought a $14 trillion juggernaut to its knees. Hardest working people on earth? I suggest you revise that statement to reflect the obvious: Americans may very well be the people who work the most hours annually, but exactly where has it gotten us? Jaw dropping rates of heart disease, cancer and mental illness . . . and don't forget crushing debt.
The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform.
Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for.
And though all of these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
There you go! Now that's more like it. All you had to add was the following . . . So, stop eating so goddamn much Wendys and WALK to the corner store once in awhile. Smack your degenerate kids upside the head and rip the Xbox game controllers from their hands. Then march them down to the nearest park or cafe where Asian and Eastern European kids play chess and gently remind them that "those kids are far more intelligent than you and you'll be competing with them in 5 years". And hopefully most of you idiots now know that you cannot continue to spend like you did, especially now that you're probably about one paycheck from forming up in the soup lines.
Over -- over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector, jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit.
Over the next two years, this program will spend frantically in an attempt to save or create jobs that would otherwise be redundant and completely unnecessary. The government will oversee a spending free for all, no, a public works boondoggle of astounding proportions and that should terrify each and every one of you, especially in light of how we so mismanaged the financial system over the last 25 years. Sure, we'll build some solar panels and maybe a wind turbine or two, but more than that, we'll pay handsomly to allow people who generally leaned on shovels and engaged in other busy work to continue doing so, but at a premium. We'll overpay for nearly every project we undertake as throwing trillions of dollars at a massive problem without well-defined methods and rigorous oversight is a recipe for corruption and graft. I promise that my friends who helped get me elected will be rewarded for their campaign contributions - wink, wink.
Because of this plan, there are teachers who can now keep their jobs and educate our kids. Health care professionals can continue caring for our sick. There are 57 police officers who are still on the streets of Minneapolis tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make.
Because of this plan, there are teachers who can now keep their jobs despite the fact that they themselves are hardly qualified to teach gym, let alone history, biology and calculus. They can continue to coddle problem students with the pass/fail grading system (it's good for self-esteem, don't you know) and allow disruptive little ghetto thugs to cheat ambitious, dedicated students out of a quality education rather than allow them to just drop out and take on their dream job of installing car stereos. Health care professionals cyborgs can continue treating patients in a completely detached and aloof manner while charging them thousands of dollars for medical procedures that cost $5 in most parts of the world. And finally, there are 57 police brutalizers eating donuts and tazering kids who would otherwise be at home beating their spouses, kids and pets.
Because of this plan, 95 percent of working households in America will receive a tax cut, a tax cut that you will see in your paychecks beginning on April 1st.
Because of this plan, 95% of working households in America will receive a tax cut that pays for approximately 1/2 of a tank of gas each week. This will help those of you who still have jobs and commute to work.
Second -- second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages.
It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values, Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped to bring about. In fact, the average family who refinances today can save nearly $2,000 per year on their mortgage.
We have launched a housing plan that will mostly help irresponsible home owners, especially that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford. Oh, and those of you who are stuck making mortgage payments on homes that are 50-60% overpriced . . . well, we're really sorry about that, but lower interest rates will lessen the payments, but you'll still have to pay every goddamn red cent while your neighbor gets a cram down.
I will not send -- I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can't pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can't get a mortgage.
That's what this is about. It's not about helping banks; it's about helping people.
I will not expressly spend billions and even trillions rewarding Wall Street executives; they'll have to find a way to siphon off taxpayer money for that, and given the manner in which they've confused, confounded and deceived the masses thus far, I don't anticipate that being a problem. This IS about helping banks--those very same banks that helped bankroll my $600 million campaign. If it weren't, we wouldn't have handed them hundreds of billions without oversight and clear directives stating when and how that money will be repaid.
Anyone who's been to Mexico has surely noticed these nice young lads driving around in jeeps equipped with .50 caliber machine guns, faces obscured by bandanas and masks, ready to shoot and kill anyone at the drop of a sombrero. Well, those kind and goodhearted kids (and they are kids) are called Federales, and they're basically all that stands between murderous, drug dealing pieces of filth and mass beheadings/burials, political assassinations and, well, anarchy. Only one problem - these officers of the law are about as law abiding as your average L.A. street gang member. In fact, it woud probably not be an exaggeration to suggest that they are an integral link in the drug distribution chain.
You can see how it might be a problem when the federal law enforcement officials charged with apprehending drug dealers are in fact cooperating with them. Most of Latin America operates similarly. Having lived in both Argentina and Brazil, I have found that cops are often more dangerous than the criminals from whom they purport to protect us. So, it shouldn't come as any great surprise that one of the few only mildly corrupt police officers left in Mexico was forced to resign when drug lords threatened to kill one police officer every 48 hours until he complied with their request that he quit. Like any person living in a completely corrupt and lawless society, he promptly resigned his position.
(CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico) — Gunmen killed a police officer and a jail guard Friday and left signs on their bodies saying they had fulfilled a promise to slay at least one officer every 48 hours until the Ciudad Juarez police chief resigns.
The slayings were a chilling sign that criminal gangs are determined to control the police force of the biggest Mexican border city, with a population of 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas.
Ciudad Juarez police have long come under attack, and many officers have quit out of fear for their lives, some after their names appeared on hit lists left in public throughout the city.
Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz insisted Friday that he would not back down.
"We will not allow the control of the police force to fall in the hands of criminal gangs," he said.
Uh, Mr. Mayor - I think you may have missed the memo. Your cops ARE the criminal gangs. It's hard to fight a battle when you cannot even admit to yourself that your police force is very much connected to the drug lords. Oh well, let me be the fist to wish our new drug overlords good luck on your forthcoming invasion of Arizona and Texas guys!!
I relish moments like these. The announcement that The Donald Douche recently filed for bankruptcy fills me with joy and gives me hope that this recession will be severe enough to put this POS so deep in the red that he strokes out and lives out the remainder of his days on life support. As you can tell, I despise this loathsome individual and have frequently held him up as an example of all that is wrong with the US.
I find it a little more than ironic that this ass clown is revered for his business acumen, and yet this will be his third go round with BK. Only in the toxic financial cesspool called America would someone who ran his business into the ground THREE times be heralded as some kind of guru. Hey Donald, think that far-flung project in Dubai and building in the overbuilt cities of Vegas and Miami might have been a misstep. Yep, you're fired!
We're taking bets on the number of jobs the Great One will promise (and inevitably fail to deliver) here at MLC. When all is said and done, just how many jobs do you reckon he'll actually create? It's almost impossible to keep track; after all, the figures change on an almost weekly basis. I believe he initially promised approximately 2.5 million--an extraordinary feat in and of itself--and was revised upward, finally peaking at around 5 million just a few days ago.
Just what kind of jobs will be created, or "saved", remains to be seen, but with geniuses like Pelosi, Reid and Dodd on the case, it's money toxic assets in the bank. I have to admit, I am rather curious about how we'll quantify the number of jobs that have been "saved" by the stimulus. Personally, I think there's room for at least another 5 million mortgage brokers or investment bankers, but I believe complex financial engineering should lead us out of this mess the same way it landed us here. We cannot simply abandon the tertiary economy and begin producing finished goods cuz, I mean, like, you know, making stuff is soooo overrated. Give it a year or two and the Chinese will be begging us to sell them MBSs and CDOs for a .05% return.
Overall, the best course of action would be to invest in several large, tangled bureaucracies that consist of more mid and senior level managers than actual laborers. It's also important to rush into projects without a definitive plan or goal so workers can spend half the day discussing the project and the other half leaning on shovels and holding up walls. And it's a good thing that so many of those who lost their jobs were moonlighting as construction foremen. They'll have no problem making the transition from loan underwriter to cement finisher.
This is the message Paulson, Geithner, Bush, Obama and the rest of the Wall Street Bail Out Bunch are indirectly sending out. I know no one will ever mistake Americans for the sharpest knives in the drawer, but our response to this patently obvious scam seems fairly muted, even for the most brainwashed civilization to ever plague the earth. You know all is lost when the announcement that $78 billion has essentially been pissed down a rat hole never to be recovered doesn't raise an eyebrow - anywhere. I can understand if we overpaid by a billion or so, but 78? Just who the hell was pricing these assets? Mugabe? And how did they arriving at such vastly inflated figures? When you're dumpster diving for crumbs in some back alley, please think back to what $78 billion could have done (other than allow bankers to snort diamond dust and screw Victoria's Secret models at your expense).
Imagine that your neighbor has asked you to buy him a middle of the road 5-series BMW then handed you his checkbook and sent you on your way. Now imagine that you shopped around, bought a 1978 Datsun and paid $250,000 more than it was worth. Think your neighbor would slit your throat in your sleep and burn your house down? Probably, but the more germane question is: why the fuck would your neighbor trust you with his checkbook in the first place? Well, America . . . why did you trust a former Goldman Sachs executive with your $350 billion?
Elizabeth Warren, the chairwoman of the panel, said former Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had promised that the government would buy the assets at their market value and that it was alarming that he didn't do so. "At various points, Treasury has articulated policy objectives which could result in a program involved paying substantially more for investments than they appear to have been worth at the time of the transaction," she said in written testimony submitted to the Senate Banking Committee yesterday. "The American people want to know what's going on and they deserve answers.
(On a personal note, I'm -GASP- shocked to the core that Paulson DIDN'T actually do what he said he would, and I'm sure all of you are as well. It's surprising that any member of this Senate panel could keep a straight face knowing that aim of this "program" was precisely that which it achieved - overpaying).
The panel's findings do not imply that the government has lost money on the investment because companies are still required to repay the amount invested plus interest.
Well, I know I feel better. What a relief to know that someday Citi, BofA, AIG, Countrywide and the rest of these thieving entities will be paying us back the trillions they owe us. And just as soon as the trillions in toxic mortgage backed assets and CDOs that sit festering on their books regain their 2007 values, all will return to normal . . . I sure am glad to know that I can do something to help housing flipppers/fraudsters, bankers and politicians make a buck or two on the backs of our misery.
You're all cowardly pieces of shit whose heads are buried so far up your asses, only American Idol and the latest Brangelina pregnancy are cause enough for you to retract them. Just out of curiosity . . . have any of you heard from Big Hank since his departure? Any idea what he might be up to now? Of course you haven't heard from him. He's too busy spending your money on gold-plated toilet seats and luxury jets. Oh and I'm almost certain he's finalizing the details on his Wall Street consultancy that guarantees to maximize a participating firms' access to TARP funds. Maybe he's just returning to Goldman just in time to get his hands on some of that sweet, sweet TARP pie. Mmmmmmm!
DIE AMERICA, DIE!!!
Give up? The correct answer is: they don't exist. Obammy sure has a penchant for picking tax dodgers and pay for players, doesn't he? That's not very Change You Can Believe In. So, let's see . . . there's Killefer, Daschle, Richardson, Geithner, and now, Solis. Either Emanuel isn't vetting these selections very well on the front end, or nearly every beltway politician is cheating on their taxes. My money's on the latter, although I imagine we could even find a few discrepancies in Emanuel's filings if we dug deep enough. A man doesn't amass a $10-12 million fortune without cheating somwehere along the way. It comes with the territory, particularly given his former line of work: Wall Street Scamster.
I too have found myself caught up in daytime reveries wherein I have 14 children, none of whom I can provide for without hundreds of thousands in public assistance and gifts from other fucked up women with pretensions of spawning an entire baseball team. I mean, I really want a large family, not one of those puny families of seven. Now I don't know if doctors are required to do a psych rotation before getting their licenses, but someone please verify that these dildos are indeed licensed physicians and mentally fit to practice. Someone must put a stop to this before they become the center of a new reality TV show called "Makin' Bacon" or "Infertility 911". Honestly, this woman must disguise her deep-seated mental illness really well, or these doctors are just fucking morons-I can't decide which. Actually, I think they just wanted some exposure and to get paid in the process. But good luck with the forthcoming inquest. Hope you fucking turds lose your licenses.
As this story develops, details are starting to emerge about this trashy little sperm receptacle. Not one to stray from the usual cliche-strewn path, it appears that Ms. Suleman is already entertaining book, TV and movie deals. Suleman has even expressed interest in conducting interviews with Oprah and Diane Sawyer (Diane Sawyer - WTF?) for beaucoup bucks in order to help defray the cost of raising 14 fatherless children destined to grow up ignorant, destitute, ignorant, deprived, ignorant and without a functional maternal figure. Somewhere a mangy producer is dreaming up an unimaginative reality show concept called "15 Is Enough" that will generally consist of naked kids with chocolate stainage around their mouths running wildly about a donated foreclosure home while mentally unstable mom attempts to impregnate herself with a turkey baster and the next door neighbor's sperm so she can squirt out another pup or two, because she "always wanted 16 20 kids".
I don't know if it's fluoride in the water, depleted uranium or NASCAR, but something specific to America brings out the white trash in people. What sort of twat thinks she needs another 8 children when she certainly had her hands full with the existing six, one of whom has autism. For as long as I shall live, I will never comprehend why a doctor would implant 8 embryos in an unemployed 33-year-old mother of six. One would think that women seeking this sort of treatment must undergo some sort of psych testing, or at the very least, be forced to divulge certain financial information. Her deadbeat parents certainly didn't loan her the dough. Oh well, Americans are furious or ambivalent, but either way they'll take it in the ass and raise this woman's children for her. It takes a village of idiots to raise a child . . .
