You can’t blame the guy for trying. Well, on second thought, of course you can.
Republican Senatorial candidate from Massachussetts Jeff Beatty is trying to close what I can only assume is a yawning gap between himself and former presidential candidate and current 4 term senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry. Politicians always resort to finger-pointing and gotcha tactics when the outlook gets really bleak (just ask John McCain, Cindy McCain and Sarah Palin).
Beatty was correct that, just two weeks after its $84 billion bailout (loan) from the U.S. Treasury (taxpayers), AIG springing for a $440,000 spa retreat for top executives to think and talk and manicure their way out of insolvency just wouldn’t go over well with voters. And of course, the situation was just made more ridiculous by AIG’s receipt of an additional $38 billion taxpayer-funded loan the day after Congress blew a gasket about the spa retreat.
Beatty is trying to link John Kerry to the insurance giant and has demanded that Kerry immediately dump his stock in it, which is valued at $2 million (probably not any more).
Now, I’m no fan of AIG at the moment, but given that we - you, me and every other taxpayer out there – just gave AIG a nearly $130 billion loan, I would rather Mr. Kerry keep his stock right where it is. Has no one informed Mr. Beatty that the stock market has suffered a more than 1,400 point freefall in just the last week – the biggest point drop ever? You listen here, Mr. Politician, no one’s selling anything, you hear?
Everybody just take a deep breath and back away from the panicky, sell-off inducing rhetoric over a global business so important the U.S. government couldn’t let it fail, shall we? That goes for the other twenty-six members of Congress who currently hold stock in AIG, and any of their opportunistic challengers who would rather win an election than see us get our billions back.
