Socialism sucks! (Virus hits). Socialism save us!!

[Andylusion]

Tom Paine:
"... and may once again — as in 2008/9 — simply bail out bankrupt Hedge Funds"

Toddsterpatriot:
"Which hedge funds were bailed out in 2008/9? How were they bailed out? Link?"

This was hardly the main point of my comment, but it amazes me this question is still being asked. The bailout programs of the Fed concentrated in 2007-9 on major otherwise soon to be insolvent banks (including foreign banks) and AIG. It has been demonstrated that the money and credit was also given to dozens of their special counterparty private Hedge Funds. Of course by their very nature these private unregulated and usually highly leveraged firms were discrete and almost invisible to the public. But the press and researchers showed that Hedge Funds closely related to the big banks and AIG that were bailed out were bigger and survived the crisis more frequently and in much better shape than those connected to unbailed out smaller institutions, and their execs "earned" bonuses in the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars in the next few years:

Opinion | Hedge Funds Make Hay (Published 2010)

Big money managers should have their pay treated as ordinary income, with higher tax rates.

www.nytimes.com

Hedge Funds Got AIG Bailout Bucks Too

www.businessinsider.com

Daniel Hemel: Money to tax-dodging hedge funds is the real AIG outrage

Daniel Hemel: AIG funneled hundreds of millions to hedge funds – and those execs pay lower taxes than most public schoolteachers

www.theguardian.com

Did Connected Hedge Funds Benefit From Bank Bailouts During the Financial Crisis?

We examine whether connected hedge funds (i.e. those that are prime-brokerage clients of bailout banks) benefited from bailout programs initiated in seven count

poseidon01.ssrn.com

This was hardly the main point of my comment, but it amazes me this question is still being asked.

I've never heard that claim before.

The bailout programs of the Fed concentrated in 2007-9 on major otherwise soon to be insolvent banks (including foreign banks) and AIG. It has been demonstrated that the money and credit was also given to dozens of their special counterparty private Hedge Funds.

Dozens? Can't name any?

Of course by their very nature these private unregulated and usually highly leveraged firms were discrete and almost invisible to the public.

So you can't prove your claim.....because they're invisible?
Did anyone else see any invisible bailouts?

Now you are being just childish. In the real world, especially when ridiculously leveraged firms are going bankrupt and capital is being destroyed, survival depends precisely on who gets the bailout money when, and how much. The investors in these counterparty Hedge Funds of the big banks and AIG (often of the same families managing the bailed out banks) got rich precisely because they got hundreds of millions in pass-along funding at the crucial moment.

Bankruptcy courts, on the other hand, under law give creditors better standing than stockholders (who are often wiped out) and even creditors are put in different categories. But one of the reasons bankruptcy is often a better solution for insolvent firms (besides the moral hazard argument) is that old management is usually wiped out and investigated by new management and can then be prosecuted for violating their fiduciary responsibilities. At the same time new management can keep the business running while debts are temporarily in abeyance and new funding is sought. This was done to many bankrupt airlines in the past, but unfortunately due to our politicians' unwillingness to pass appropriate legislation, the new managements just continued self-enriching but company killing stock buy back programs. Boeing spent some 45 billion this way in the last decade and the airlines a similar amount. While this management looting goes on, it has been an essential part of propping up share values to ridiculous levels. Ditto the taking on of debt (money was so cheap) for this purpose.

Nationalizing poorly run corporations (at least temporarily) is another option, just not one likely to be acceptable today in America. The present crisis is sharp and triggered by "external" reasons, so nobody considers these longer term problems seriously. But if people want to fight about socialism and capitalism (I am not a socialist myself), they should at least understand how our "crony capitalism" system works at the highest levels of finance and credit/money creation. Again, we are not talking about small and medium businesses here, or workers, all of whom may get devastated in financial crisis (however they are created).

P.S. You obviously did not read the links I provided. They list many of the Hedge Funds by name, show their relationships to banks and AIG, speak to how much money some of their directors made, and show the workings of the bailout pass-alongs and their importance to the Hedge Funds very survival.

Well wait wait....

Management is not "looting". Management is doing exactly what it should, namely trying to get money to save the company, from any source possible.

If I own a company, and the company has problems, and I hire YOU as CEO... what are we hiring you for? Well, obviously you are keep the company running, and being profitable.

Now first off, few CEOs are going to take a job, to manage the Titanic after it has already hit an iceberg. Again, think about this logically... You are going to jump into the captains chair, of a ship that is critically damaged, and could very well end up sinking.

Your reputation is on the line. You could end up labeled the CEO that sank X Corp. That could possibly follow you around for the rest of your life. You may never get an executive position again until you die.

So why would you do it? Why would you risk destroying your possible future?

Because we (the shareholders) stand to lose everything. You correctly pointed out, that in the rare event of a total liquidation of the company, that shareholders are typically wiped out. And this is correct, and morally right by the way. We can discuss why later if you life.

Nevertheless, point is, it's worth it to us to lay down a massive incentive for you to save the company. That means bonuses, and incentives, to get someone to try and save the company.

And if you do save the company..... if you and the executives actually manage to save the company... well yes, that's worth millions, even hundreds of millions to use the shareholders of the company. Again, we'd have nothing if the company imploded.

Then as it relates to government... if you found the only way to save the company, was to get a bailout, and the government was offering bailouts.... you would get the bailout.

My point in all this is....

It's not looting. They are merely doing, exactly what they should do. If you were the owner of the company, and you hired a CEO to save your company, and the CEO decided yeah they could save it with a government bailout, but instead he's going to refuse and just let your company go bankrupt.....

Would you just accept it? No, you would fire that CEO, and hire another one that would get the bailout, and save your company.

We need to stop making accusations, and trying to condemn people for what, if any of us were in the same situation, would do. And you are not being honest with yourself, if you deny that.

We need to stop attacking executives, that are honestly, simply doing their job.

The entire blame for this, is 100% on the shoulders of government. Government did this. Government handed out the money. Government caused the problem.

If you simply don't bailout people, then this problem solves itself.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I get your points, but I don't think you get mine. I am not attacking executives who are "honestly" doing their job. But what is that job under present circumstances?

As I explained at great length, "looting" -- where it occurs -- takes place systemically, before and after crisis. Bail-outs by themselves change nothing. They usually just reset everything in a way where those favored institutions prosper at the expense of smaller or less favored ones. Today CEOs and CFOs and interconnected board members and major investors and thousands of giant Hedge Funds and Hedge Fund investors and the Fed giving away virtually free money to "priority agents" -- they are all connected. Corrupt managerial capitalism and our deficit-ridden government and the Fed are all connected and interconnected with Wall Street and international capitalism, and also with imperialism. We will soon have dozens of Third World countries repudiating U.S. dollar sovereign debt.

Of course there are also well run companies, many of them, but they can also be effected by financial crisis. I don't want to make generalizations, but we must face facts.

Were the Covid-19 inspired shut downs in the world economy to end tomorrow, it would not change the vulnerability of the system, or the drift toward a financial oligarchy in the U.S., or improve corporate governance or end chronic federal deficit spending, or alter our unfavorable balance of payments. Nor will these problems be solved by imposing high tariffs or trying to "decouple" from international chains of production. The problem isn't individual COs either. It is that indebtedness and levereged playing of the markets is encouraged by the system. In recent years corporations and corporation executives and Hedge Funds make more and more of their money by taking on leverage, going into debt. Long term planning and saving a cushion for hard times was discouraged and firms paid a penalty if they did so. That is all I'm saying.

 

[francoHFW]

Socialism is democratic.

but is it Capitalistic??

Stalin said, of course we are democratic, why do you think we hold elections?"


"At a time when the Democratic and Republican parties are intellectually and spiritually bankrupt, it is imperative for radical voices to be heard which offer fundamental alternatives to capitalist ideology. I wish Mel Mason good luck on his campaign," Sanders wrote in a letter to the Militant in January 1984.

communism has nothing to do with socialism except for English-speaking brainwashed conservatives

 

[Bo Didleysquat]

Did y’all catch Trumps presser ? Whole lotta commie socialist talk going on. Tests for everyone ? Bailouts ? Billion dollar aid packages ?!?


When push comes to shove , socialist type programs ain’t so bad . Or should we rely on capitalism alone to save us with price gouging?

That is beyond ignorant. If you guys hadn't lied and distorted and scared the country into a panic, we wouldn't be needing these massive stimulus bills.

And, FYI, the private medical sector is playing a huge role in our effort to deal with the virus.

And the amazing GOP propaganda machine even missinforms about this. And our president gets all his facts from Fox news. Amazing. Poor America

It's utterly hysterical how it can be less than an hour, repeatedly, after they spout it, that he'll regurgitate it. It's The Reality America Show.