AIG Summary

There's been a lot of discussion regarding AIG and bailouts. Here's a summary of the important points.

The key points regarding AIG are:

1. The bailout of AIG is a stealth bailout of the banksters.
2. An explicit bailout of the banksters would be too obviously corrupt. Therefore, devious tricks are devised that hide the looting. The AIG/GM bailout is a stealth bailout of the banksters. The "stimulus spending law" bails out the banksters via increasing the inflation rate. Complicated excuses for bailouts are invented, via phony pro-State troll Keynesianeconomics.
3. Executives have no obligation to disclose how bailout money is actually spent. There's zero accountability.
4. The bonuses at AIG and other banks are only a tiny fraction of the total money stolen.
5. The financial industry is purely parasitic. In a true free market, bankers play a valid role matching savers and people who need capital. Via fiat debt-based money, the financial industry is *GUARANTEED* a certain percentage of all productive work in the economy. It's built into the rules of the monetary system! The rules of the monetary system were written by (guess who?) financial indusry insiders!
6. The salaries and bonuses earned by the banksters are pure looting and pillaging. Their salaries are pure economic rent. "Economic rent" is a situation where someone earns a profit without doing any work. For example, State licensing of lawyers and the nature of the legal system means that lawyer salaries are economic rent.
   
7. The "too big to fail" mentality means that businesses that aren't "too big to fail" aren't worth operating. You'd be an idiot to own or operate a $50M bank. You'll just go bankrupt during the next recession/depression.
8. When a bankster buys credit default swap insurance, one of the components is supposed to be "risk that the insurer goes bankrupt". Via the "too big to fail" principle, the banksters are not punished by the market for misestimating AIG's bankruptcy risk.
   
9. It is silly to say "Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are competitors", if Citigroup's bankruptcy would threaten the solvency of Goldman Sachs. In a true free market, you don't lose if your competitor goes bankrupt. The reality is that the large banks are colluding to loot and pillage the American people.
10. State regulation of the economy, along with the "too big to fail" propaganda, encourages consolidation of industries.
    
11. In a true free market, the bankruptcy of one business doesn't threaten everyone. In a true free market, you don't have large megacorporations. Instead, you have a bunch of small businesses. State restriction of the market is required to make large corporations more profitable than small businesses.
    
12. When a mainstream media communist/comedian discusses economics, it is pure propaganda. It is convincing and sophisticated propaganda, but it still is propagadna.
13. Bailouts aren't free. Non-insiders pay the cost via the inflation tax, the income tax, or other taxes.
14. The financial industry is, essentially, a legal money laundering operation.
15. If you don't want to continue supporting a corrupt system, then agorism is your best option.