Fed to loan 85 B to AIG.

Your tax dollars hard at work.

Yeah, since the other bailouts haven't cause a disaster yet, some brilliant minds think more is better. I can't disagree more!

NO WAY!

More taxpayer Billions to save a company that was stupid. You've got to force stupid companies into bankruptcy.

$85 Billion is so much money that it isn't even funny.

This is ridiculous.

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Are ANY of these executives going to be held accountable for their poor leadership in thinking that this would not happen? FLB has been preaching this was inevitable for at least a year. Any person with common sense knew house prices could not continue climbing, yet these bozos continued coming up with more and more convoluted schemes (scams) to make billions, knowing they would walk away rich.
At least the CEO's of Fannie and Freddie don't get their $25Million parachutes. So they've lost millions in stock, BFD they've got million more in ill gotten gains and should be forced to pay back any bonus's (bonusi?) they got in this ridiculous run up.
GFC, where can I get a piddly 3% return now? I'm down 13% Year to date. Correction: it's now 15.2% as I just updated my prices.

What are the odds that this "loan" and the interest on the "loan" will ever be paid back?

Back in the 70s, the bailout of Chrylser was only 1.5 Billion, and they paid it back a year early, with interested. This is UNREAL!

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For one thing, it's BLACK LETTER LAW ILLEGAL!!!!

Where the hell are the cops?

I'll have more on this later.

Source: The Constitution of the United States.

Hang these bastards.

The problem is that while the big boys may sanction, or at least not fight the sub-prime madness, many of the problems were caused by the middle management minions. No matter how much we would like to string them up by their thumbs, it won't happen. At least not by the government. The best that could be hoped for is that investors file civil suits against them. Good luck in finding a lawyer when the victim and those responsible do not have deep pockets.

The Feds had a tough call to make. Do you allow them to fail from their own culpibility, or do we save them and maybe prevent a crisis for the millions of innocents that get dragged down from the panic. The fustrating part is that AIG failed because they insured the fat cats against losses stemming from their bad sub-prime investments. On the bright side of things, If AIG can be pulled out of this, the treasury may even make a profit on this.

AIG will NOT be saved. The issue has been post-poned, that is all. And there is not enough money in the collective universe to back-stop all the rotting garbage on the balance sheets of companies across the globe.

Retail investors (shareholders) are getting reamed, the taxpayer is getting reamed, and the architects of this brilliant scheme (debt-holders) are being made whole at their expense.

Yesterday's felonious actions postpone and enhance the conclusion building in the credit markets. Step carefully--you know what happens when you roll a bowling ball into a room full of mouse traps!

What color is the sky in your world?

Buncha freaking geniuses...

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The cost to hedge against losses on U.S. government debt rose to a record after the Federal Reserve rescued American International Group Inc. to avert the worst financial collapse in history.

Benchmark 10-year credit-default swaps on Treasuries increased 4 basis points to 30, according to BNP Paribas SA prices at 6:45 a.m. in New York. The contracts have risen from below 2 basis points at the start of the credit crisis in July 2007 and are more than double those on government bonds sold by Austria, Finland or Sweden.

The U.S. Treasury pledged an $85 billion loan for AIG just 10 days after committing as much as $200 billion to prevent a collapse of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The U.S. budget deficit will grow next year to $438 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said Sept. 9, making it harder for President George W. Bush's successor to either cut taxes or increase spending.

``The latest bailout comes at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer,'' Tim Brunne, a Munich-based credit strategist at UniCredit SpA, wrote in a research note today. ``It cannot be expected that AIG will survive in its present form.''

Credit-default swaps, contracts conceived to protect bondholders against default, pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a country or company fail to adhere to its debt agreements. An increase indicates a deterioration in the perception of credit quality; a decline, the opposite.

Contracts on Treasuries are quoted in euros and a basis point on a credit-default swap protecting 10 million euros ($14.2 million) of debt from default for five years is equivalent to 1,000 euros a year.

The cost of protecting corporate bonds from default fell with contracts on the Markit CDX North America Investment Grade index of 125 companies in the U.S. and Canada declining 13 basis points to 187 in New York, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group.

In Europe, the Markit iTraxx Financial Index of 25 European banks and insurers declined 3 basis points to 132, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The Markit iTraxx Europe index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings fell 6 basis points to 132.

Where is Congress?!!!!!

Has every one of those idiots got their head in the sand?

Are they going to let him spend us into nothing overnight?