New York Times reports that an $85 Billion loan is being given to AIG in return for an 80 percent stake in the "troubled" insurance company. This continues a trend of bailing out those corporations that are too big to fail, but apparently not important enough to the country to be properly regulated and monitored.
It has been widely bruited about that the government is no longer going to bail out the poorly run Masters of the Universe companies, but that means that pretty soon we are going to quit, not just yet. It is a dilemna, of course because the failure of the behemoths would, indeed, put a real hex on the economy and they are important to the continued functioning of the economy, like heroin is to the functioning of a junkie.
It will be the next administration who will have to try to pick up the pieces-and 85 Billion dollars is just a piece-of the economy. The room for maneuver and for instituting new and better social programs is being squeezed by the socialism for the rich policies of the elites. The only answer I can come up with is to tax the beejeebus out of the rich so that we can get the money back in the system and out of their estates.
I hope that the Obama administration takes a careful look at the fundamentals of the economy and takes a "cold turkey" approach to the terrible plight of the uber wealthy. A good start is a high tax rate on unearned wealth and a ferocious estate tax on those grand estates that are passing down hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars.
Till then, dig deeper boys and girls; daddy Warbucks is feeling the pinch.
UPDATED to add AIG to title.
2nd Update New York Times has issued a correction stating that the deal is not done yet but close to being done.
Thanks for all the comments everybody!