AIG bailout. AIG? American International Group Inc. is an insurance company, one of the largest in the world and its financial stability is affected by their investment in mortgage-related securities.

WHOA NELLY !

It doesn’t make any sense to me though hard as I try, I suspect it never will. It’s not that I am too old to learn, it’s more likely that I am unwilling. It’s TMI (too much information) and would take a significant amount of effort – more than I am willing to put forth - for me to grasp all of it.

Isn’t there anyone out there that we as average American citizens can simply trust?

AIG is considering filing for bankruptcy. A friend of mine heard this news and immediately – I mean immediately – filed papers to get her long term investment money out of there. She signed papers with complete knowledge of the penalty she would have to pay. She however, had no knowledge of whether she needed to take her money out, if her money would be even be available to her now that she had requested it, what amount she would in fact receive or if it was safe to have let it sit. This money was in an IRA account. It’s not as though she planned to need it for some time. It was an investment she thought was safe when she made it. But hey – when she heard the news headline – that was her money AIG was putting on the chopping block.

Of course not long after she filed those withdrawal papers – probably at the very time when we were discussing it over lunch – the government announces bailout plans for AIG Inc. Breaking News! Too late – the first headline had already cost my friend two and a half percent.

Here’s the rub. Who can she ask to find out the right thing to do? In jest, another friend at the table suggested putting it under the mattress then reneged on that suggestion. Why? Because she’s currently skeptical enough to think more people are breaking into homes because a lot of people are keeping cash stashed away these days. Maybe that’s true maybe it’s not. I don’t know.

Putting that aside, keeping money, significant amounts, under the mattress still seems a bit Neanderthal and I’m not convinced we need to go that far back. Heck, if that is the case we may as well just barter goods and services, surviving on IOU’s. Oh yeah, that is what we do isn’t it. That is what those sub – prime mortgages were. And that didn’t turn out so well did it? Hmmm…maybe we ventured toward Neanderthal after all.

I sometimes wonder? AIG leaders are well – educated in the world of financial investment, in other words, where the best place is to keep money. They should have known where they had it wasn’t working out in their favor right? They must have noticed the lump in the mattress wasn’t quite as large. This in turn probably caused them to look under their mattress, count the money and see that it is not what they originally put there right? I am of course making assumptions.

Bottom line. These very same well educated people are filing for bankruptcy and the people whose money that is, are reading about it in the headlines?!?!

Seems to me that the poor schmuck with some terrible misfortune at Charlestown Races and Slots who also had to file for bankruptcy because the Exacta wasn’t exact enough is not so different than the Ivy Leaguer now is he? Didn’t they both just keep trying to guess – gambling is guessing you know – read as many programs and calculate as many figures as you like; in the end it’s up to the four legged creature. And for an Exacta it is up to TWO four-legged creatures. So tell me you are not making a guess. An educated one maybe but then again it is the horse who ultimately decides to win, place or not show what it is capable of. This brings me back to my original point. These bankers were making what we can assume were educated decisions (guesses) and I call that gambling.

Okay. I just compared financial investment on the world market to betting on horses running in Charlestown West Virginia and maybe that was unreasonable.

Quoted in the Washington Post September 17th article “On the Line for Others’ Losses”, David Schiff, longtime observer of the company and editor of an industry trade publication. "Obviously they didn't think they were risking it. That's the problem: They didn't envision that the situation could have gotten so out of hand."

Well DUH! That I understand. And that in my humble opinion is “Not so REASONABLE.”

What do you think?
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