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Dear A.I.G., I Quit

nytimes.com

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

#61

Post by Rod »

plinkplonk wrote: post #59
Rod wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 irreleva…

Dude, I have no problems with you. You pointed out some flaws in my arguments. You didn't act as if you were an expert. You didn't act as a pompous fool. My problem is with the collective belief here on HN that just because most of us are good at coding, then we are soooooooo smart that we can understand any topic without any study. That is naive and offensive. People in other fields who take decades to become proficient are not stupid. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to become an expert in any field. Period.

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

True. The problem, you see, is that I don't know what is happening at AIG! What I do know is that I know close to zero on that topic. What I do know is that many people try to paint things with a very broad brush and go for simplistic and superficial analyses.

You are right that my writing style is a bit too aggressive. I get downvoted all the time because of that. I should remind myself that I am no longer in the jungle-like financial world. And though I am not a U.S. citizen, unfortunately I am a U.S. tax-payer :-( Peace.

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

#62

Post by noonespecial »

endtime wrote: post #31
noonespecial wrote: post #10

Says the rain drop, "Flood!? I'm not responsible for any flood! I'm just one tiny drop! Its all of that other water that made the flood."

Not sure why this straw man is getting so many up votes. He's not saying he had minimal impact. He's saying it was nothing to do with him and he never profited from it at all.

Wow. I kind of meant that as a "shoulder shrug" comment. Didn't think it'd start a huge debate and have its karma shoot up and down like a hot air balloon on a windy day! Cool.

The point was more along the line of being an answer to the implied question "why should my huge bonus be effected when it was just my employer that was acting nutty". He got more than 700k after taxes. Would this have been possible without the other bogiosity that was going on at AIG? Should he still just be paid this even though his company has entered a type of receivership to the US taxpayer because it basically completely failed? Was the very idea of a > $1M bonus for what he did there part of the flood? I was thinking yes.

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

#63

Post by zurla »

Rod wrote: post #41
zurla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company should have gone bankrupt (and certainly would have, without US government intervention), in which case none of these people would have seen any bonuses at all. he should be grateful for the $1 :-)

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.

I do think there is a legitimate debate as to whether or not we should have bailed out AIG. To address your later points, there are plenty of respectable people who argue we should have let AIG go bankrupt. "Financial experts", if it makes you feel better, for example Jim Rogers, whom I mention since you seem hung up on this point.

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

#64

Post by noonespecial »

comatose_kid wrote: post #56
plinkplonk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I think the whole point is that Libby now can't keep his promises because he ruined his company, in part, by making such promises.

I could promise you a gold plated Mercedes for making me a sandwich. The difference is that I haven't got one, and once I've eaten the sandwich, I can't just show up and ask Congress to spot me one to give you.

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

#65

Post by Rod »

zurla wrote: post #63
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.

I do think there is a legitimate debate as to whether or not we should have bailed out AIG. To address your later points, there are plenty of respectable people who argue we should have let AIG go bankrupt. "Financial experts", if it makes you feel better, for example Jim Rogers, whom I mention since you seem hung up on this point.

Knowing that Jim Rogers argues that we should have let AIG gone bankrupt does not affect me. What I am interested in is knowing WHY Jim Rogers believes that AIG should have gone bankrupt. I would like to know on what ground he argues that. Do you have any URLs on that? I am intrigued.

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

#66

Post by tallanvor »

My company still made a very good profit last quarter, and the last two quarters have been the best ever for my division. And yet my company has still told us there won't be any merit increases due to the economy. So, for this guy to whine about the pressure to give back the bonus when his company lost $60 billion is pretty outrageous.

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

#67

Post by kiba »

Rod wrote: post #41
zurla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company should have gone bankrupt (and certainly would have, without US government intervention), in which case none of these people would have seen any bonuses at all. he should be grateful for the $1 :-)

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.

Unprofitable firms and crippled fianancial insitituions are a libability to the economy. Proping them up with stolen taxpayer money is not a sound way to run an economy.

Profit and loss exists for a reason, they finetune the allocation of resource to ones we find most efficent. If we don't allow the bust to run the course, than we will be less prosperous in the long run.

Beside, this is not the end of the world. We suffered worser recession like the recession of 1921.(Yes, worser than the Great Depression) Then the 1920s became the roaring 20s.

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

#68

Post by petercooper »

bcostlow wrote: post #6

Sorry Jake, but I don't feel sorry for you. Well, maybe a little, if your claims about being tarred unfairly with the CDS debacle are true. But stop whining. All over the USA, people who work hard, who get great reviews from bosses, customers and peers, who were promised bonuses and profit sharing, are seeing instead slashed pay and benefits. That is, if they are lucky, and not getting RIFed. Your company is in the c…

Is there any way to find out what the original URL was on "dead" items? There really should be a way, even if it's some crazy tiny nofollow link someplace ;-) (I can Google in this case, but that's not always true.)

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

#69

Post by Rod »

kiba wrote: post #67
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.

Unprofitable firms and crippled fianancial insitituions are a libability to the economy. Proping them up with stolen taxpayer money is not a sound way to run an economy. Profit and loss exists for a reason, they finetune the allocation of resource to ones we find most efficent. If we don't allow the bust to run the course, than we will be less prosperous in the long run. Beside, this is not the end of the world. We s…

I am also a fan of "Darwinian Capitalism", but AIG and other huge financial institutions aren't called "too big to fail" without a reason. I advocate pragmatism over blind ideology. As much as I would like to see AIG implode, I think one should be careful and take into account what that would imply, and how the shockwave of destruction would affect the rest of the economy. All in all, all I am saying is: analyze the problem, make decisions based on data, not based on gut feelings or dogma.

Last but not least: the financial world in the 1920s was completely different than what it is today. Unfortunately, in Economics experiments are not exactly reproducible. For one reason they call it the dismal science, right?

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

#70

Post by jimbokun »

endtime wrote: post #29
bilbo0s wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EXACTLY!!! Commodities and equities were leveraged as well at AIG. Leveraging that the CDS business provided capital to finance. It's all connected. I think this guy is choosing facts to put himself and his team in the best light. There are probably a lot of people over there dressing down the CDS guys for being incredibly irresponsible, and the CDS guys were, I'm not trying to deny that. That said, the other busines…

We all contributed to this crisis. I take issue with this. I certainly didn't contribute to the crisis - I'm a student and have been since kindergarten. The vast majority of Americans didn't contribute to the crisis. I'd say that even the majority of people on Wall St. didn't contribute to the crisis. Those who are responsible should own up, but playing the "everyone say sorry" game is pointless if not disingenuous.

"The vast majority of Americans didn't contribute to the crisis."

What percentage of Americans bought greatly over valued homes and have excessive credit card debt? The net savings rate has been 0 in the recent past.

I will take at face value that you, personally, have not contributed to this crisis. But a large number of Americans have.

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