doesn't it seem like the government is merging with corporate America?

After a long time, all of a sudden.

Didn't our national debt just quadruple or something?

Did the government really buy AIG? Or was it the other way around?

I'm thinking of a word...

Is that the word you were thinking of??? Do I win a prize, Alex?

Somewhere else last night and got *crickets*.

In answer to your question: Yes.

And yes to the evolution of Fascism. And worse - that $85 billion? We do NOT have that kind of money. Which means I'm betting China via the US Govt now owns a piece of the American people.

Scary shit.

Because you see Fascism would look just the same here as in Germany so since those ovens haven't been stocked, we are A Okay. Not.

So we're safe.

:evilfrown:

It's more profitable to keep us alive and slaves.

reality is more and more like a science fiction story every day? Thinking Dick and Gibson here.

11% (annually?) for the loan of $80 billion, but whether we the taxpayers will ever be reimbursed has yet to be seen.

This is the tip of the iceberg. The canary in the coal mine. AIG has insured other financial institutions to essentially guarantee the value of their (worthless) mortgage backed securities. We know how that is going to turn out.

If the government plans to honor all those contracts we the taxpayers are in for a lot more than $80 billion.

The way to fix this goddamn mess is to create a housing program for people who can't pay their mortgages. Adjust the mortgages to some reasonable and fair rate, and pay the mortgages. The money will flow upwards and fewer institutions will fail.

Socialism?

Yeah so? At least it works and will serve out purposes better than the government picking and choosing who they will bail out - which is much less effective and amounts to corporate socialism.

Either way - there is some socialistic government aid being handed out. Lets do it in a way that will work.

check it out. He did say the gov 'nationalized' the company by seizing it and arranging this loan/bail out. It is interesting to consider that some element in our government might have
done this intentionally (if you consider what Spitzer did to AIG to be an attempt to rein them in,
and or hobble them). And then there's the story someone else posted about AIG's connection
to Carlyle.

There definitely seems to be more going on here than meets the eye. Whether this is a unique
case among the bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions and dismantling/consolidation process that's occurring right now or not, is hard to say.

The Corporations, The investers (stock and bond holders), and the government.

The companies will externalize their losses and the little guys with pensions and retirement savings be damned, their blood will be used as grease to slide mountains of bad debt over to the taxpayers.

private profits / public risk

People have been warning against that since Saint Reagan, the Bastard.

... that we are now officially becoming one of those nations. It's literal now.

:(

all these companies?