Call To "Open Source" AIG Investigation

VValdo writes "As you may recall, the citizens of the US shelled out about $85 billion to bail out AIG and its creditors (Goldman Sachs in particular) last year. But as 80% owners of AIG, we still don't know what happened, exactly. That may change. In a new op-ed piece, former prosecutors (including former NY governor Eliot Spitzer) are calling for the US Treasury to force AIG to release its treasure-trove of emails to the public before allowing AIG to 'break free' of our control. As the prosecutors put it, 'By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of "open source" investigation. Once the documents are available for everyone to inspect, a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom, as reporters, victims and angry citizens have a chance to piece together the story.' Good idea?"

Comments

Keep Dreaming

[arcticinfantry]

This will *never* happen. GS is far too powerful to let that happen. The AIG bailout was quite simply a giveaway to GS.

Of COURSE it's a good idea

[popo]

As many accountants have said: Show me a company who does not get audited, and I will show you fraud.

There are only two options here:

Option1: We the People get ripped off.
Option2: We the People are allowed to see exactly where OUR money went.

All other options are Option 1 in disguise.

Not quite

[SlappyBastard]

Being 80% owned does not integrate a corporation into the entity that owns it. Trust me, Verizon has been using the exact theory for decades to lock Verizon Wireless workers out of the main Verizon company's collective bargaining agreement. Also, ask the Rigases (who owned Adelphia) if full ownership entitles you to complete run of the company -- it can be a jailable offense if you go about owning the company you own to aggressively.

A stockholder company has a wide range of fiduciary issues. It's very likely that if the government, as 80% owner, tried to force corporate secrets into the open that the other 20% could sue them for abandoning their responsibility to the company.

Re:Not quite

[Ramze]

Nope... you and whomever modded this as +5 informative needs a course in business law. Owning 51% or more in a company gives you complete and unquestionable authority over what actions a company can take unless a signed contract says otherwise or your shares are specifically "non-voting" stock. If the Fed. govt. as 80% owner decided to release all documents or even liquidate the company, the owners of the other 20% would have no say at all and no legal recourse.

Audit the --- FED --- FIRST!!

[gd23ka]

And here's the way it'll happen:

Support Ron Paul's bill http://www.auditthefed.com/ and http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

Why audit smalltime thieves when we could be coming after the GREATEST financial criminals this far into human history!!!

They stole trillions from us and wont tell us what they did with the money.

Re:Will this be like the CRU emails?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Let me guess, I suppose none of you find it strange or noteworthy (or obvious like a sore thumb) that public (government-run) schools generally do not teach the well-known fact that under the Federal Reserve system, dollars represent debt and not wealth. They don't teach that if all debt were paid off there would be no money in circulation. They don't make it clear that when money is created out of thin air and has interest attached to it the moment it is created, there is not enough money in circulation to pay off all debt.

Another Zeitgeist victim. Here's a tip; read a book on basic finance. Better yet, just read a book. Any book. The Great Crash. Animal Farm. I don't care. Stop getting your information from YouTube and the odd polemical internet site.

Every single one of the arguments applied to "fiat money" can be just as easily applied to supposed "hard currencies" like gold. Remember, when gold or platinum or what have you is mined out of the ground, from a currency standpoint, that's exactly equivalent to some new dollar bills being printed. Dollars, euros and yen are worth money because they are (relatively) rare. It has sweet FA to do with debt. The circulation money has nothing to do with debt levels. Debt is not "created" by printing bills or mining metals. Debt is created when people spend more than they earn; which is what western society has been doing economically for 20 or more years. We'd be in debt if we used fiat money, the bren-whatever gold muck-about, or else just traded in bottlecaps.

Strong individuals can do their own research, process their own information, and obtain their own understanding. Helpless sheep need someone to both provide and interpret information for them.

And brainless fools require someone to pre-digest their information into a pseudo-intellectual web-video so it can be masticated into their waiting mouths. Learn to chew.