Michael Covel

Linda Anderson Added:

September 16th, 2008 at 10:59 pm

The government probably has some CEO Friends that needed a job. Maybe those friends are from Freddie Mac or Fanny Mae!

Francois Added:

September 17th, 2008 at 12:52 am

Capitalism cannot thrive without a modicum of regulations. The key is to find a balance between innovation of all kinds and the obvious, but often derided need for a referee (a.k.a. regulators) to supervise the game.

Of course, the ref is always the fallout guy, the villain that impinge on the party. How sad! Cry me a river baby!

Now we can see what happen when we get rid of the ref…chaos and mayhem. Entirely predictable, yet, we just refuse to learn, don’t we?

Mohammad Saleh Added:

September 17th, 2008 at 5:03 am

Is someone else willing to own it? Capitalism and Socialism are coined by someone, people accept them because they are the easy way to define good or bad against what you need.

Sometimes you need socialism and sometimes capitalism; sometimes a lot of people are involved and sometimes less people.

There is no good or bad, there is the right thing to be done by me and you and others for our benefit as a society and there are others creating other societies that work to gain other benefits that clash with our benefits.

One may not blame anyone for being greedy or unfair; instead we must take caution and action against what we see as bad.

Even if AIG cause raise in insurance prices for the common public, 1000,000 people can come together and make an insurance company that will cover any of them, why worry about AIG and a hike in insurance prices? its because majority 1000,000 people do not have the knowledge and the ability to understand how insurance works, and is easier being served an insurance policy than to be smart and informed enough to join others in a quest to insure each other, that’s what governments are there for, you don’t have to learn and know, you stick to your simple life of driving to work and taking care of your food and drink in fancy packaging and short term thrills and the government will look after the complex long term issues like insurance.

I don’t blame a government, they are like us only smarter and selfish, they deserve to own what they own, they are not as powerful as 1000,000 people but 1000,000 people are weak because they can’t see the big picture and can’t act accordingly

Jim Lien Added:

September 17th, 2008 at 9:25 am

Mohammad,

If you see that we all need to do the right thing to benefit our society then you are inherently promoting socialism. If however, you think that you should do whatever it takes to help yourself without encroaching on the civil liberties of others, then you believe in the invisible hand of capitalism. Socialism promotes degradation of the individual while capitalism promotes the individual.

Insurance companies did not have to make investments in bad product lines based on faulty models. The government does not have to step in and take over AIG; a bankruptcy proceeding would have allowed outside investors to take over assets at acceptable rates of return while punishing shareholders for owning a bad company. Nor did they have to allow Fannie or Freddie to exist in the first place.

Government is not smarter or more selfish and it is not in their mandate to run an insurance company. With the takeover of these financial companies, the government is rewarding the shareholders and employees poor risk management of a risk management company with billions of dollars of (borrowed) taxpayer money.

If that sounds fair to you then you probably deserve your government.

Ken - Todays Breakout Stocks Added:

September 18th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

There’s something even more disgusting. I just read on wsj.com that the SEC wants to ban all short-selling. So much for free markets!

chump Added:

September 19th, 2008 at 12:41 am

“One may not blame anyone for being greedy or unfair; instead we must take caution and action against what we see as bad.”

Holy shit dude…Communism? Corporations and Citizens alike should be held accountable for their actions. Come on.

Whos we and who defines what’s bad???? These companies should fail and clear the market, the govt is only delaying the inevitable…

Mohammad Saleh Added:

September 21st, 2008 at 1:58 am

I do not promote socialism or capitalism or communism or anything that ends with ‘ism’, in fact I do not approve of any of it.

I am not talking politics, politics are rules created by others so we could debate, but if these rules are flawed in the first place then we must not engage in naming systems like socialism or communism or what so ever, there must be a system with a simple common name called ‘human’ and it is based on ‘common sense’.

Now with AIG, I believe Jim is right, but the government did what it always does. Can you stop that? I am not against a government as long as they are okay, but when they are not okay, what can we do? Blame them? This will change nothing.

But if we take the blame for not having power over such acts, we will feel obliged to act and stop this from happening.

Which feeling suites you? Blame someone else for your mishap or feel lesser, angry and wanting a change?