Dear A.I.G., I Quit • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#51

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 6:53 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #50

comatose_kid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time understanding why on a board that purports to attract entrepreneurs, we have so many people on this thread who are bashing the guy because he made more money than you might judge reasonable. (ps - I think you mean commensurate?)

"we have so many people on this thread who are bashing the guy because he made more money than you might judge reasonable." attributing (bad) motives to others does not help make a strong argument, and you are probably wrong anyway. No one here has said they were "bashing" anyone because he made a tonne of money. When taxpayer dollars are put into a company that crashed and burned , there is a valid argument that the…

[deleted]

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#52

Post by Rod » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 6:54 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #46

Rod wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize what the consequences of letting AIG go bust could be? Do you realize that bailing out crippled financial institutions is entirely different from bailing out Motown's idiot car companies? Do you realize that AIG has various divisions and only one of them was trading the toxic financial products that destroyed the company? Your comment sounds like demagogy.

"Do you realize that AIG has various divisions and only one of them was trading the toxic financial products that destroyed the company?" Most companies that go bankrupt do have some divisions that performed well and didn't "destroy the company". Weak argument.

The argument was NOT the one you cherry-picked. The argument was that bailing out financial institutions is NOT the same as bailing out non-financial institutions. Since you did not get the idea, I assume that Finance is not your forte. My mistake for not having made my point more explicitly.

What we are witnessing is collective schadenfreude. Most people are happy to see these giant institutions fall. Unfortunately, most people know zero of Economics and Finance and fail to realize that if some institutions collapse, we might end up in an even worse situation.

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#53

Post by natch » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 6:57 AM UTC

He seems to think that making obscene profits == doing nothing wrong. Not always true.

The loopholes found and exploited by these guys, for the institutionalized purpose of making a killing, sometimes have nasty side effects like destroying good companies and draining the pension funds of average workers.

All in the name of profit, which is great by the AIG yardstick, but not so great for the rest of us.

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#54

Post by plinkplonk » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 6:58 AM UTC

Rod wrote: post #52

plinkplonk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you realize that AIG has various divisions and only one of them was trading the toxic financial products that destroyed the company?" Most companies that go bankrupt do have some divisions that performed well and didn't "destroy the company". Weak argument.

The argument was NOT the one you cherry-picked. The argument was that bailing out financial institutions is NOT the same as bailing out non-financial institutions. Since you did not get the idea, I assume that Finance is not your forte . My mistake for not having made my point more explicitly. What we are witnessing is collective schadenfreude . Most people are happy to see these giant institutions fall. Unfortunatel…

"The argument was NOT the one you cherry-picked. The argument was that bailing out financial institutions is NOT the same as bailing out non-financial institutions."

You asked a series of rhetorical questions of the form " Do you realize blah". That isn't "argument" or reasoning. Do you expect people to automatically agree to anything you say just because you say "do you realize.."?

"Since you did not get the idea, I assume that Finance is not your forte."

A better assumption is that you didn't make your point well ;-)

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#55

Post by neilc » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 6:59 AM UTC

vegai wrote: post #48

Uhm, how is it not their fault? Honestly.

AIG is a large company; the set of people with personal responsibility for the credit-default swaps is much, much smaller. That said, it seems like a massive failure of risk management for the senior management to have allowed this situation to develop as it did.

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#56

Post by comatose_kid » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 7:04 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #50

comatose_kid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time understanding why on a board that purports to attract entrepreneurs, we have so many people on this thread who are bashing the guy because he made more money than you might judge reasonable. (ps - I think you mean commensurate?)

"we have so many people on this thread who are bashing the guy because he made more money than you might judge reasonable." attributing (bad) motives to others does not help make a strong argument, and you are probably wrong anyway. No one here has said they were "bashing" anyone because he made a tonne of money. When taxpayer dollars are put into a company that crashed and burned , there is a valid argument that the…

Plenty of people on this thread have commented on how much the guy makes and used it to undermine his argument. Given this, I'm not sure why you think the 'juxtaposition was invalid'.

I didn't say that tax payers shouldn't have a say on how the money is spent. But that doesn't excuse Libby from breaking his promise to his senior staff.

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#57

Post by Rod » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 7:08 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #54

Rod wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument was NOT the one you cherry-picked. The argument was that bailing out financial institutions is NOT the same as bailing out non-financial institutions. Since you did not get the idea, I assume that Finance is not your forte . My mistake for not having made my point more explicitly. What we are witnessing is collective schadenfreude . Most people are happy to see these giant institutions fall. Unfortunatel…

"The argument was NOT the one you cherry-picked. The argument was that bailing out financial institutions is NOT the same as bailing out non-financial institutions." You asked a series of rhetorical questions of the form " Do you realize blah". That isn't "argument" or reasoning. Do you expect people to automatically agree to anything you say just because you say "do you realize.."? "Since you did not get the idea, I…

True, I concede that I didn't make my point well. Also true is that my goal was to counter the OP's argument, not present a forceful one.

I don't know what you do in your professional life and I would be lying if I said I care. Before coming to grad school I worked at a hedge fund and I realized I know practically zero of Finance. I strongly believe that discussing the details is what matters, and no one on HN is qualified to discuss the details on the AIG debacle. Let's face it. These financial discussions here on HN are usually enormous displays of ignorance (there are rare exceptions). This community's forte is coding. No one around here knows what's on AIG's books. I bet no one around here is a great bankruptcy lawyer. Even those who know Finance only know a few instruments, and AIG was trading a lot of instruments. It would take decades for one to learn all it takes to REALLY understand what's going on in Wall Street.

Knowledge is not a matter of consensus. Some comments are written by clueless people. Many of these comments are upvoted by even more clueless people. I make no claims that I know what is going on, but I see a lot of pompous fools on HN who believe they know it all. I say, let us go back to coding because we all suck at Finance. I only happen to suck less than most because I worked in the field.

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#58

Post by gojomo » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 7:22 AM UTC

kqr2 wrote: post #18

I wonder what his salary was during the boom years. My guess it was probably in the millions. He may not have been directly involved in selling credit default swaps, but profit from that division probably helped pay his salary.

Money is fungible, sure. But if his division was profitable even after paying his salary, you can't fairly say "profit from [Credit Default Swaps] probably helped pay his salary".

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#59

Post by plinkplonk » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 7:25 AM UTC

Rod wrote: post #57

plinkplonk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The argument was NOT the one you cherry-picked. The argument was that bailing out financial institutions is NOT the same as bailing out non-financial institutions." You asked a series of rhetorical questions of the form " Do you realize blah". That isn't "argument" or reasoning. Do you expect people to automatically agree to anything you say just because you say "do you realize.."? "Since you did not get the idea, I…

True, I concede that I didn't make my point well. Also true is that my goal was to counter the OP's argument, not present a forceful one. I don't know what you do in your professional life and I would be lying if I said I care. Before coming to grad school I worked at a hedge fund and I realized I know practically zero of Finance. I strongly believe that discussing the details is what matters, and no one on HN is qua…

"I concede that I didn't make my point well. Also true is that my goal was to counter the OP's argument, not present a forceful one."

I fail to see the difference.I would have thought the best way to counter someone's argument is to make a logical, coherent counter point.

I am not questioning your background. I am sure you have many valuable points to make and I look forward to hearing them. My background is irrelevant as regards how well you are expressing yourself.

Our disagreement (such as it is) revolves around your use of such terms as "pompous fools on HN who believe they know it all".

I'd much rather assume that someone on this board is intelligent (taking out the "fools" part) and has put some thought into what he/ she is saying (removing the "pompous" part). He could still be mistaken though. That doesn't make him a "fool" or "pompous".

It is very possible that you have more knowledge of finance and what happened at AIG than the hacking centric folks on this board. This is a good thing.

What I find less than optimal is your hurried/ill thought out arguments (" do you realize .. ") and your constant "attack the person vs the argument" style.

If you would use your knowledge of finance to illuminate the errors made by others (vs calling them names) with solid reasoning and argument that would be very valuable. That kind of high quality conversation is what HN was set up for.

I'm done with this thread and will let you have the last word if you so wish it. :-)

I am not a United States taxpayer and have no stake in the whole AIG debacle at all. Peace.

Re: Dear A.I.G., I Quit

#60

Post by gojomo » Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 7:25 AM UTC

aagnihot wrote: post #13

If the government had not bailed out AIG, it would have declared bankruptcy. In such a case, he would have been effectively jobless. Also, a bankrupt company cannot award bonus. So even as he keeps his job, he dares to complain about bonus. Hypocrisy at its best!!

But also in a bankruptcy, care is taken to separate out profitable divisions (often for sale to other entities), and those divisions are only valuable if the staff stick around. So one of the first things arranged post-bankruptcy are retention contracts much like the ones in question here.

It's hard to manage a giant company with some runaway losses/liabilities and other profits/assets. It can't be done by op-ed, radio call-in show, or congressional hearing.