Whether we talk about AIG or other pieces of the great steaming pile of economic malfeasance, the Obama administration’s actions have been timid and unimaginative, to put it charitably.

If congress can retroactively immunize the Telecoms from prosecution for violating our 4th amendment rights and helping the government to spy on us, then congress can EASILY retroactively break AIG’s contracts …

That telco immunization hasn’t been tested in the Supreme Court yet.

at the same time I have no problem letting Obama know I think the Geithner tool was a foolish pick. And don’t see the downside of saying so in public.

Say it once or twice, but over and over ad infinitum is unfair and doesn’t give them time to actually prove their plans will work.

Besides, it hurts politically when Dems will go for health care reform, financial industry regulation and other things.

there can be no argument that Obama and his economic team are responsible for approving this agreement with AIG. The idea that they couldn’t figure out a way to get the deal done without paying off these bonuses doesn’t pass the smell test. First off all, it would have been very easy to carve out a bankrupcy for AIG Financial Products and keep the rest of the firm solvent.

Maybe your smell test is wrong or maybe they did have something in there on bonuses but AIG ignored it. If Cuomo gets AIG for violations then it will be up to you to apologize to Obama & team.

Maybe they didn’t want to turn AIGFP to insolvency because maybe it’s NOT insolvent. Ever consider that?

frankly I’m running out of plausible guesses as to what his gameplan might be.. and I am starting to conclude that, at least on TARP and the financial system, he may not have one yet.

I could swear I’ve heard Obama, summers, Geithner, Bernanke and Romer all say they’re keeping banks (and AIG) shored up until they can get the toxic assets off their balance sheets with the new public-private partnership TALF program.

When they get the toxic assets out of banks they will have no good reason to not return to normal lending and the private firms (hedge funds mostly, I would guess) will have time to let the housing issue be resolved without it hurting their balance sheets.

I would also guess they’re looking into splitting up Citigroup and AIG, though they haven’t yet said anything about actually ‘busting trusts’.

Is it possible that the real complaint here is that people who want to know what’s going on can’t see it all in real time with live blogging?

Obama is a criminal, just like Bush and Cheney. Same policies, different suits, that’s all.

I can’t really imagine Bush doing ANY of the things Obama has done.

Two months in office and what do you have? Geithner, Summers, Rubin, Bernanke. The four clowns of the apocalypse who CREATED and fostered the current debacle.

You seem to have forgotten about 20 years of Republican power.

Chicago School of Economics
Milton Freidman
Alan Greenspan
Phil Gramm

and others

Your memory needs checked.

I think all the CDSs should be nullified as based on fraudulent assessments.

Have your analyses been reviewed by any economists of note?