Hey, we bought another company, but we are diversifying.

[Kauai_Kahuna]

Just needed to vent, the folks at the local pub got tired if it, actually their response was "Huh".
Yet another bailout, another 85 BILLION added to our tax bills.

At least, we now bought out an investment bank, two mortgage companies, now an insurances agency. All we need now is an airliner and an auto maker for a fully diversified portfolio.

Am I the only one sick of this? When do I get to see a perp walk of a CEO for being stupid and stealing money from my pocket. (Oh I mean adding to my tax bill).

Time to have another homebrew. :cross:

 

[EvilTOJ]

Got a link for that?

My budget is dangerously low as well. On the verge of collapse. I will need a government bailout of one billion dollars. Actually, I'll be thrifty and only ask for $250 million.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

Heck, I'll be fat, dumb and happy with 4 Mil, but of course I'll have to move to a "third world" country to enjoy it.
OH, yea these CEO's move to California, my mistake.
Just to clarify, (starting to calm down) the latest buyout was AIG, from the limited news it looks like 82-85 Bil for a major stake of the company, around 80% if you trust the news.
Don't get me wrong, I would not like to see them fail and what would happen afterwards, I just don't want to be used or abused, and I want to see some perp walks. Just a few weeks ago all of these companies said they were on the top of the word and everyone should by their stocks, bonds, and give them more money. Now they are begging to the Feds.
Time for another beer.

 

[knarfks]

This is funny, I am forced to use AIG by work for retirements, I have a meeting today with the guy. I lost 75% of everything I put in before the buyout. I hate union contracts that force you to use a certain retirement company. I was putting in the minimum anyway, but that would have been nice in my 5% interest checking account so I wouldn't have thrown the money away at least.

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

knarfks -
The funds in the company should be OK, but I had a guy buy me two beers because he was able to pull out his annuity today from AIG. Personally all I care about is I got two free beers for understanding and being able to tell him that a buyout happened.
Any company / Union that forces you to buy individual stocks is just so wrong. I allow a max of 5% of my net worth / unworth in my company stock, and times like this makes me realize how wrong that is.

 

[Evan!]

Privatize the profits, socialize the risk. It's the 'merkan way.

Not that I'm a big fan of economic regulation, but if you're going to let the financial markets go unregulated like the Republicans have done through this entire bubble, then you need to follow through and let the failures go unregulated too. You can't just let companies make terrible loans and decisions and say "hey, nah, it's cool, you do what you want, it's sink or swim, you're on your own", but when the sh*t comes down, bail them out.

That's not gonna work, because when you combine a lack of regulation with the promise of a safety net (at taxpayer expense, of course), you practically encourage bad decisions. Why? Well, think about it: if you know the government's gonna bail you out if things turn out bad, but let you do what you want and take all the profits if things go well, then of course you have every reason to make extremely risky decisions. It's akin to your brokerage firm saying "if your stocks go up, you make money, but if your stocks go down, we'll make sure you don't lose anything". Holy hell, man, if they said that, I'd be buying the highest-yield and highest-risk stocks I could find. And that's exactly what the US government has done. It's f*cked. And we pay for it one way or another, either with our tax dollars, or through inflation when the fed devalues our currency through market intervention.