A couple of my readers contacted me regarding my recent blog article Inspector General Barofsky: U.S. Treasury Hid A.I.G. Loss.
Christopher Hill of Krisken Managment in Geneva, Switzerland said:
After reading this information, I ask, how is it possible that the Treasury will own 92% of A.I.G. that it will eventually sell to the public? Does the public not already own the company? The public is the tax payer who bailed these managers out.
For the taxpayer to lose money, it means someone has to win money. The money does not disappear. From simple accounting, one can depreciate an asset to the value of 10 dollars, sell it to the institutional clients who will revalue the company and push its price to over 50 dollars.
So the Treasury is guilty of negligence or collusion to defraud the tax payer. Come on, how stupid do they think the American taxpayer is?
Of course Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the other banks that get free money from the Treasury -- via the Federal Reserve -- are being subsidized to buy these shares.
Why can't they subsidize Americans who want a job? It would be best to give all those shares to each American and or to use the proceeds of the sale to repurchase foreclosed homes and to give them back to their rightful owners who were naively encouraged to buy houses that they could not afford, yet made payments up to a certain date.
Did the banks not get to write off the losses on their tax returns? Now, I read that Swiss Bank UBS is getting off clean, even though they actively organized tax evasion for many citizens in the U.S. Is it not racketeering? There is no loss. It is an accounting entry, that reflects commissions and fees charged by intermediaries.
Think of how much money was paid to banks and auditors to tell people that -- oops -- we auditors and accountants screwed up, but we can show you how to understand our screw up. Of course we have our disclaimer and you have to pay us 5 billion dollars in case we go bust and are fired. We need to maintain our standard of living, because we have fancy schools to pay for, hairdressers for our wives, and for those who have mistresses, well, we have to pay to play.