It was AIG’s blind willingness to insure (cheaply) mortgage-backed securities irrespective of risk that led investors to keep buying them, as they could use CDS’s as a hedge. If the derivatives market had been better regulated, AIG would’ve been required to keep enough cash reserves on hand to pay its counterparties in the event of a housing collapse. Consequently, CDS’s would’ve been more expensive; the market for mortgage-backed securities would’ve been smaller; and fewer questionable mortgages would’ve been issued.

My anger is with the government for mixing taxpayer money with a private company and term it a “bailout”! They just handed over this money and AIG, like others, went on with business as usual! AIG should have never paid the bonuses!

Now is the time to take AIG over like it takes over a bank and sell it off to more smaller and stable companies.

As taxpayers we have real problems facing us like Congress not paying attention to what it is doing. Ask each Senator or Representative IF they actually read the bill before they voted on it and I bet that they got the cliff notes version and didn’t even bother reading that!

We are now in a situation whereas we as voters need to make some hard choices coming up. We first need to take back our ability to vote on more issues as a society. Sure it would take more time but the voter gets to decide by majority.

Next we need to outlaw these political contributions from corporations. Limited money given to anyone running for office to $500 per adult per election and only from his/her own district – except for the president since that office is the only one that needs to go national and that one too needs to be limited to $500 per adult per election.

And finally – NO MORE BAILOUT MONEY except directly back to the taxpayer!