Comments on: AIG's Fall: Bad Business Or Criminal Acts?

CBS Exclusive: Investigators Digging Into Whether Execs Of Failed Financial Giant Misled The Public

[cpforest]

Criminal. I was a shareholder in AIG, I lost almost my entire IRA to it. I went back and scoured their annual report to try to locate their exposure in Credit Default Swaps. Congress and Clinton in 2000 legalized these bucket shop instruments, but they did not legalize completely omitting a firm's financial risks from it's financial statements like the annual report and doing so, is a criminal act.

[usaisoverhoser]

To even propose the question that it could be a result of bad business decisions instead of intricately concocted corrupt acts is an insult to my intelligence. Do Washington and Wall Street still think they are fooling us? Take a sampling of the comments across various news web sites?the game is over, like the jig is up man.

[vuenbelvue]

"Ask me again who the criminal "really" is. You sheep elected him. You were bought and sold like slaves by Media, wall Street and Big 3 Auto."
A somewhat true statement but this reality goes thru party lines. 1st The present members of Congress are selling us out for campaign funds and only term limits will finally settle this. 2. Deficit spending has gone amuck. The cureent Congress just voted aye for two large stimulus bills (taht really aren't stimulus but pork) and are still requesting money for the lobbiest who line their offices. It's in every state of the Union. 3. Foreign spending and Pentagon spending is out of control. 4. Arrogant congressional leaders win 75% of the vote because the majority of the voters are voting party or name recognition.5. Immigration and looking the other way is the creed of the US State Department and it needs to be corralled. Term limits all the way to POTUS. It is not a Democratic or Republican problem. It is a national problem.

[ahrats]

These three guys lost 11.5 billion and they get a bonus? AIG should be put out of business or when are hiring I can lose even more do I still get a 2 million dollar bonus? AIG needs to broken up and those three guys should be in jail, luckily their in the U.K. so we can not hunt them down and hang them from the highest tree.

[hunterdon6]

I am betting on criminal act. If investigated, you would find criminal wrongdoing in all the banking firms, wall street, and our elected leaders in Washington D.C..

[brianbwb-2009]

"Heed the words of Sir Winston Churchill. "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."... Posted by YouCantBSirius

Just because Churchill said it doesn't mean it is correct. Unregulated corrupt capitalism is also a philosophy of failure, as evidenced by the present state of economics, it sells envy, it has no virtue at all, because it relieves the corrupt of misery, and consigns it to the less than rich.

"...How's that trickle up mentality working for you?" Posted by YouCantBSirius

We will know how it works when we actually start it, as it will come eventually. It is obvious you don't know what the concept actually is, you seem to think that subsidizing corruption by the rich is "trickle up", you are no where near correct.

[brianbwb-2009]

"The criminality would be if someone willfully intended to basically put in false information and ultimately defraud the general public and the stockholder," Laperla said. "

Well Laperla, you would probably not be too surprised to find that it is likely that 99% of all firms listed on Wall St. have cooked books and false statements that mislead and defraud the general public and the stockholder.

Contrary to what the neo trolls are trying to spew, this greed transcends party lines. They all are crooks.

[disabled-student]

To err is human, to really screw up you need a computer. And Joe Cassano says, "I can do one better, Global Economic Crisis.... I'm a genius."

[ibsteve2u]

The way "leadership" works in America's corporate hierarchy these days, I am sure that - in their eyes - AIG's fall was not the fault of either "bad business" or "criminal acts".

It was because of either "too much regulation" or "irresponsible actions carried out by unnamed subordinates" - precisely the same excuses the Republicans draw from when confronted with their inability to lead without corruption.

[stn_sage]

If it were only 'bad business' as proffered in the title, it shows incredible criminal incompetence!
And those in charge of AIG should be held responsible for their incompetence!

If it's 'criminal acts', then prosecution should proceed, and those responsible should be punished.

But who's fooling who, here? All these company execs do is 'spread a little cash around' to the politicians, and judges, and anyone else they need to "pay off"! And then, later, usually
much later, they're found guilty on trivial charges, given a ludicrously short sentence, in living quarters that are better than a large percentage of the public lives in, then they come out, and
start up right where they left off!

No, even if the evidence exists they won't truly be punished! So, if the public exists the system to do it---they'll have to wait until Hades freezes over!