it would be pretty difficult for them to pull this off. They've got intestinal fortitude that's for sure.

There's very little about the Fed overstepping its bounds with AIG, nor one of the main points that Geithner and Bernanke used AIG to effectively launder bailout funds to Goldman and the rest. Dodd-Frank actually tried to address the very issue in the case, namely that the Fed overstepped by taking equity in AIG. I don't find this article to be terribly persuasive because it's cast in moral tones of good vs. evil when it's really scumbag vs. scumbag. Greenberg doesn't deserve money, he deserves the penitentiary. So do Bernanke, Geithner, and Paulson for the misuse of public funds.

should have been nationalized.

Either way, that's the power of Congress, not the Fed. The Fed took on executive powers without a legislative mandate.

a really big rock and very hard place, they had no one to blame but themselves. Treasury did not hold a gun to their heads. Treasury simply said here's the deal we are offering. Take it or leave it.

They could have accepted the consequences of their own actions, but they decided to get the taxpayers to bail them out, and then sneered in the taxpayers faces by using some of that bail out money to pay themselves huge bonuses.

As it it, they got better terms than anyone else was offering. And they were saved. They should be grateful, but like most entitled, spoiled rotten brats, they are throwing a temper tantrum and demanding more.

AIG was going to be bailed out no matter what because it held the bets on the housing market. A failure of AIG would have sunk ALL of the investment banks and most of the commercial banks. This wasn't a case of having a choice, this was a case of the Fed exceeding its powers granted to it by law. It was done to hide the fact that the investment banks were insolvent and thus ineligible to apply to be holding companies under the Bank Holding Company Act.

By the way, Greenberg hadn't been at AIG since 2005. This is a dispute over stock he owned through special purpose vehicles, as I recall. It's got nothing to do with AIG being ungrateful. The author is trying to gin up outrage over supposed ungratefulness when the actual issue is that the Fed and Treasury screwed up. Like I said, it's scumbag vs. scumbag.

Still chuckling and having a laugh at that...They, Bernanke, Geithner, and Paulson should be on life time perpetual civic duty serving on soup lines and doing the laundry for the homeless, along with Bush and Cheney.

I had not heard about this.

soulless fucking pigs!

All tolled it came to the entire value of all real estate in the entire United States.

Well,....that's what I read back then.

They think the opposition is not strong enough.

by their name ought to drink this in

But can you see him actually sending his golfing buddy Dimon to jail? This is why I will have a hard time voting for Clinton. More of the same

The bailout occurred in 2008. Obama took office in January of 2009.

but they continued after Obama took office. Here's a timeline:

https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/main/timeline

This idea that the bailout "cost" the government anything is kind of silly -- the government made several billion dollars off of it, and that's what pisses off the banks.

Personally, I think they can sit on their request and spin, but it's not the case that they "took money" from the government; the government took money from them as the cost of keeping them afloat temporarily.

I guess this is the thing that pisses me off the most, that these corporate criminals were never held accountable for their crimes. To me this is almost as bad as the lies used to justify the Iraq War. Nothing was done there either. WTF?

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them out of their false beliefs

... tailoring bullet-proof vests for these assholes.

Amazing the power when people group money together to defeat democracy.
If it didn't make life so horrible for everything it would almost be laudable.

They're too big for the breeches.

...money on the back end as well?

All assets seized. Put them and their families on the street.

Let them apply for welfare.

a gallows, on the other hand, would pose greater challenges to such an effort

They made money off of vacant properties. How is that not a benefit?

Instead of trying to sue the government for more undeserved/unearned dollars.

It is amazing the level of greediness these people have. Entitled jerks....

This is the problem with not prosecuting any of these executives. It re-enforces their belief they are above the law and above government regulation. And still think they "deserve" more handouts...