The Audacity of RAGE

[marcus_sez_vote]

This makes my brain melt.

A.I.G. is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured nearly $200 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also

Comments

[russiandude]

Given the state of the economy, I can't see the intelligence in any person abandoning a paying job. I highly doubt someone is not going to hire a secretary because she didn't quit AIG early enough. In the job market, skills are all that matter.

[noradannan]

And, really, there's a difference between the bigwigs screwing people over and the regular people who have jobs there. It's not the secretary's (or the programmer's, etc.) fault that the pooch got screwed. I certainly hope it won't be taken out on them. I can't really recommend that any of them leave their job (which is likely already a position that may be cut) to make a moral stand against the few who messed things up. Yes, I would hope I'd never need to work for an immoral company, but I don't feel like regular workers at AIG are bad people for being there.

[darkwhimsy]

Just to throw a different spin on this...

The government loans all kinds of people money on favorable terms. Many people have student loans, for example. Does that mean they shouldn't ask for tax refunds?

Now, I think it likely that AIG doesn't deserve these particular refunds - if it comes down to a debate between the IRS and AIG, I have greater faith in the IRS. But until such time as the government actually nationalizes companies like AIG (which I think would be a better solution than shoveling cash into supposedly "independent" companies), it's actually entirely appropriate for those companies to act like private companies do, and not like arms of the government.

[egowumpus]

Oh, come on! Stop being Lawful Neutral and embrace Chaotic Good!

I agree, though; if there is a tax issue, that is an issue that is separate from their bailout issue. They may still be wrong, but the issues are not as entangled as the article makes out. That it should be entangled is a separate matter; they should probably, at this point, be nationalized - they failed as a business and the government had to come in prop it up so that the services provided to the society didn't suddenly stop. There is little reason to let it keep operating as it had, independent of government say. If that's not the decision, though, then it should do so within our code of laws.

[marcus_sez_vote]

Evil is kind of a weird word. As long as everything was going up and up these people were geniuses. Now did they engage in these speculative trades deliberately to crash the financial system? I seriously doubt it. Did they expect to be bailed out by the government? I don't think they did to the same extent as Fannie/Freddie Mac. It gets down to ethical behavior, arrogant belief in their own infallibility, lack of legal oversight in keeping up with this method of "making money", and getting caught up in this financial short term boom culture.

There's a case for Madoff being thought of as "evil", though even then I suspect it was a case of self-delusion/arrogance that started small and got out of control.

Be well.