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Are You Feeling Swindled Yet?

Apparently AIG, known mostly for its ability to go through large amounts of taxpayer money in order to cover outrageous bets, is reporting that it owes another 10 billion dollars that it hadn’t reported before, and which is not covered by the 150 billion dollars already allocated to it by the US government.

If that weren’t bad enough news, AIG has been taking advice from other industries and is paying out large retention bonuses, even after they were given sweet, sweet bailout green. I’m sure if their collars were blue instead of white we’d be hemming and hawing about how they couldn’t give their executive class performance bonuses when they’ve accepted government money, but why would there be any sort of equity or fairness?

Sometimes I think back to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and its 11,000 unread pages as part of an omnibus budget bill on the last legislative day before Christmas in 2000, complete with Enron loophole, and then I realize that Congress is pretty much *always* a day late and a few billion dollars short. I’m wondering exactly how the financial lobbyists who paid senators to legalize Credit Default Swaps, and basically caused this economic clusterfuck we’re enjoying right now, are enjoying the way they really gave it to the average American. If we hadn’t let the financial sector run wild with our retirement money, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t be in the incredible mess we’re in right now. It’s just sad how we’re gleefully handing the financial industry money so that they won’t give people credit the way they were designed to as a part of this ridiculous bailout. I’m so glad we didn’t give Mr Jug Ears his way on privatizing Social Security. Exactly how fucked would we have been then? I mean, we were less than 10 million votes away from Bush Jr doing the same damn thing. You’d figure people would learn, right?

Pure capitalism seems to drive pure greed and stifle innovation, yet it’s being spoon fed to us as the solution to all of our problems. “Don’t socialize anything”, they say, “capitalism means everyone can be rich!” More aptly, pure capitalism means a very few people can be very rich, and everyone else gets scraps. Do you feel those economics trickling down, and why does it smell like urine? We gave these jackals free reign under Bush and Company to do pretty much whatever they want, and eight years later they’re coming back crying about how they need *socialized* money, yet trumpeting capitalism by blaming it all on poor people. Of course, it didn’t have anything to do with greed, or a failure of government to give a crap, it’s all the fault of poor people. Don’t you see, if they had just made money and become rich like the rest of us, this never would have happened?

One more thing I’m a little cheezed about… I just found out that my dental insurance just cut me off, saying that I have used up my allowed amount for the year. What … the … fuck? I’ve been paying into this stupid system for a very long time, and I somehow feel that if they promise health coverage, I should *get* health coverage. The people who invented deductables, premiums and copays should be brought out and forced to eat their own shoddy dogfood. Sick people, in whichever way they’re sick, deserve medical attention and care. It’s not an *option* whether we treat them or not, if they’re sick, they need to receive care. I pay health insurance premiums and *still* pay out the nose for anything I need to have done. Where’s that lovely myth of employer-funded healthcare saving the day when I need it? Why can’t we have a single payer system like other *adult* nations and stop killing 18,000 Americans a year? I know, I know, we’re just starting to discontinue torturing people, so we’re supposed to get cut a little slack, but this is just ridiculous. Flush the entire health insurance industry down the toilet before they kill again. Oh yeah, those guys I was talking about … AIG? They’ve been fucking people out of benefits for quite a while. Why not shovel some more money their way? They’ve been doing such a good job, like the rest of the health insurance industry, of using your money to line their pockets so far, being one of the 10 worst insurance companies ….