AIG CEO trashes blue state 'culture', says business is better in red states

[Enrique]

http://www.salon.com/news/bank_bailouts/?
story=/tech/htww/2011/02/02/aig_ceo_benmosche_liberals_deadbeats

Could Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner please send someone over to AIG to slap some sense into CEO Robert Benmosche? I am aware that the man is undergoing chemotherapy in a fight against cancer, but that's no excuse for the remarks he made at an insurance conference in Washington on Tuesday. According to Benmosche, cultural reasons explain why AIG's mortgage insurance subsidiary is doing better in red states than blue states

"All of the states where we're a leader, where we're the No. 1 insurer, are red states, all of the states where we're at the bottom are blue states," Benmosche, 66, said yesterday at a conference in Washington. "Part of what we found out is that our model is about culture and it's about the attitude in the public. And what we find is where there's more of a tendency for people to be more liberal, more that the government is responsible for what happens to me."

In other words, liberals are deadbeats. They're not buying mortgage insurance because they'll be happy to walk away from their loans, no doubt whistling "This Land is Your Land" while they shred their mortgage statements.

(...)

What I do know is that red states notoriously consume more federal dollars than they pay in taxes, for the very simple reason that red states tend to be poorer than blue states, and thus consume more than their fair share of such government benefits as Medicaid. So it might be prudent to exercise restraint when speculating about personal responsibility and the government dole according to which way electoral votes tend to fall.

And what's absolutely indisputable is that AIG is the poster child for the entire category of "irresponsible company that had to be bailed out by the government." AIG's credit swap salesmen were ground zero for the financial crisis, and in order to prevent their recklessness from taking down the entire banking system with them, the federal government poured as much as $180 billion into the company. The U.S. Treasury now owns 92 percent of the company.

(...)

[fascisthunter]

1. these people always trying to divide americans against americans

I hope for the day those folks become the focal point of our disdain together.

[Dawson Leery]

2. Again, why I oppose corporate bailouts.

[jwirr]

3. Hmmm didn't AIG take a little government help not to long ago?

They are definitely deadbeats.