Wall Street Knows Meltdown Was Just Bad Dream: Simon Johnson

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-07/wall-street-knows-meltdown-was-just-bad-dream-commentary-by-simon-johnson.html

Robert Benmosche, chief executive officer of America International Group Inc., made several comments last week that were so stunningly ignorant that it’s hard to believe he actually said them.

“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 said last week 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.”

It’s even harder to believe that someone with such views is not only the top officer at one of America’s largest financial institutions, but one of the many that only exists at all because the government bailed it out with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars -- something Benmosche and too many of his fellow CEOs in finance pretend never happened.

If AIG and Benmosche have really discovered that political beliefs affect creditworthiness in a measurable way, this is a major scientific breakthrough. Let’s hope AIG will either back up his claims with hard data or Benmosche will retract his statement. Whichever way you think this will break, either the Democratic-controlled Senate Banking Committee or the Republican-dominated House Financial Services Committee should want to assess Benmosche’s judgment; he was effectively appointed by the U.S. Treasury Department, after all.

More at the link --

[WingDinger]

1. And this is how the right intends to treat us liberals. Heavy handed

and paternalistic. They will disenfranchise us, for our own good.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Coffee must not be connecting with the brain cells.

What is he insinuating?