AIG Bailout ends on positive note for Taxpayer

[scootrd]

American International Group Inc   said the U.S. Treasury will sell its last remaining stake in the  company, giving a total profit to taxpayers of $22.7 billion on  the bailout. The Treasury is selling its last 234.2 million shares of AIG  common stock for $32.50 per share, raising around $7.6 billion. The Treasury said it had realized a positive return of $5  billion on the $182 billion bailout while the Federal Reserve  had made $17.7 billion.

Taxpayers owned as much as 92 percent of AIG after saving a firm that insured 100,000 municipalities, retirement plans and companies and was a counter party to some of the biggest banks. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has said saving AIG after it was hobbled by mortgage-related bets made him “more angry” than any other measure the government undertook to counter the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
“There weren’t a lot of options, let’s face it,” Robert Willumstad, chief executive officer of New York-based AIG when the firm was rescued, said in an interview last month. “It was controversial, it was a big risk, but one would argue today that the government got its money back and a healthy profit.”

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Personally ,
I was against the Govt "too big to bailout wallstreet firms strategy .
Glad it ended on positive note for Taxpayer.
Now we need common sense oversight regulations to ensure it doesn't happen again. No more wall street foxes watching their own wallstreet hen houses.

Semper Fi

[Cuts Crooked]

That's nice. Now .......when can we expect our checks?

[Cuts Crooked]

  And on a not so positive note:
Was the AIG bailout a success?By Ryu Spaeth | The Week – 12 hrs ago 

• Enlarge Photo

  The government made a tidy profit of $22.7 billion. But a celebration may be a tall orderThe Treasury announced on Tuesday that it had sold its last remaining shares in insurance giant American International Group, restoring the company to full private ownership. Furthermore, the Treasury made a healthy $7.6 billion profit on the sale, bringing the total net gain from the government's "investment" in the troubled company to $22.7 billion. 
Few saw this day coming. During the financial crisis of 2008, AIG was the poster-child for everything wrong with Wall Street. The company was saturated with derivatives tied to mortgages, the equivalent of gambling the entire house on a single bad bet. And when you consider that AIG was the insurer for 100,000 entities, from retirement plans to major companies, it was more like betting the entire financial system. The government was forced to step in, at one point investing a mind-blowing $182 billion to prevent AIG from collapsing under the weight of its own rot. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, channeling public outrage in his inimitably understated manner, said the rescue of AIG had made him "more angry" than any other bailout.
AIG is understandably as happy as a clam. "Today warrants a celebration like no other in AIG’s history and places well in the past a crisis none of us will ever forget," said CEO Robert Benmosche, who was brought on to rehabilitate the company after its near-demise. "Thank you America. Let’s bring on tomorrow."
A celebration may be a tall order. Sure, by most objective measures, it appears the bailout of AIG was a success. It accrued no loss to the taxpayer, stabilized the financial system, and resulted in a company that is far less exposed to risk. However, there's little sweetness in saving a company that took advantage of a lax regulatory system to turn itself into a massive hedge fund. Tellingly, Vice President Joe Biden would often brag during the campaign about the government's bailout of General Motors, but he never once uttered the line , "AIG is alive and bin Laden is dead."
It certainly didn't help that AIG continued to act like a Wall Street titan even when it was under government control. "It really stuck in the public's craw that trillions of dollars of financial support were being provided to the commanding heights of the American financial system, and those guys were still paying themselves huge bonuses," Jim Millstein, a former Treasury official, tells Bloomberg. "I have real sympathy with the public in that regard."

[scootrd]

  And on a not so positive note:
Was the AIG bailout a success?By Ryu Spaeth | The Week – 12 hrs ago 

• Enlarge Photo

  The government made a tidy profit of $22.7 billion. But a celebration may be a tall orderThe Treasury announced on Tuesday that it had sold its last remaining shares in insurance giant American International Group, restoring the company to full private ownership. Furthermore, the Treasury made a healthy $7.6 billion profit on the sale, bringing the total net gain from the government's "investment" in the troubled company to $22.7 billion. 
Few saw this day coming. During the financial crisis of 2008, AIG was the poster-child for everything wrong with Wall Street. The company was saturated with derivatives tied to mortgages, the equivalent of gambling the entire house on a single bad bet. And when you consider that AIG was the insurer for 100,000 entities, from retirement plans to major companies, it was more like betting the entire financial system. The government was forced to step in, at one point investing a mind-blowing $182 billion to prevent AIG from collapsing under the weight of its own rot. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, channeling public outrage in his inimitably understated manner, said the rescue of AIG had made him "more angry" than any other bailout.
AIG is understandably as happy as a clam. "Today warrants a celebration like no other in AIG’s history and places well in the past a crisis none of us will ever forget," said CEO Robert Benmosche, who was brought on to rehabilitate the company after its near-demise. "Thank you America. Let’s bring on tomorrow."
A celebration may be a tall order. Sure, by most objective measures, it appears the bailout of AIG was a success. It accrued no loss to the taxpayer, stabilized the financial system, and resulted in a company that is far less exposed to risk. However, there's little sweetness in saving a company that took advantage of a lax regulatory system to turn itself into a massive hedge fund. Tellingly, Vice President Joe Biden would often brag during the campaign about the government's bailout of General Motors, but he never once uttered the line , "AIG is alive and bin Laden is dead."
It certainly didn't help that AIG continued to act like a Wall Street titan even when it was under government control. "It really stuck in the public's craw that trillions of dollars of financial support were being provided to the commanding heights of the American financial system, and those guys were still paying themselves huge bonuses," Jim Millstein, a former Treasury official, tells Bloomberg. "I have real sympathy with the public in that regard."

Good post.
What really gets my anger up is this wall street TOO BIG TO FAIL crud. 

[ironglow]

  To be entirely truthful, you should tell "the rest of the story"...
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/12/09/china-firm-buys-aig-plane-leasing-unit/1757669/
 
   ...And they are looking to buy more at a discount rate..   Yep; great deal, they loan us the money, then buy the division for peanuts..and we taxpayers still have to pay off the loan..