92 problems

Right now the US Government owns 92% of AIG.... 92% of stock in a private companyAIG selloff. Now we can get into the why's and shoulds of the argument, but for our purposes we should just deal with reality as we find it. The Federal Reserve is planning to divest itself of these holdings over two years so as not to depress the stock value too much. Will this work? Probably and then some, we'll probably make money on the deal. Which poses a very different and dangerous problem. Government ownership positions in private business is not a standard practice. Mostly because the last thing you want is explicit government ownership of the means of production. It goes one of two ways:

1.) Government sucks at running a business and its a failure.

2.) Government and business collude very well, are highly successful, and the consumer pays for the whole thing.

Now if you want to want to make some grandiose argument about purposes, you may feel completely free to do so. I don't care. The long term issues of this are simple: once we start making money off the private sector will we stop?

Especially in light of our financial sector. These banks have become massive kernels of investment coordination. And industrial firms, like GE, Boeing, DuPont,etc. they like this because these banks have the scale necessary to finance their expansion. Finance likes it because the more money you can offer the more you make in interest. And the rest of us? Well some would be indifferent. Me for example, my tax dollars are on the line because if these finance firms fail, well they drag down the entire setup. On the flip side I like making money faster (growth). And for government it's one big headache.

Now why do I care? Because I am gonna make some money on this AIG stock :) .