Sign up today and take advantage of member-only content — the kind of timely, cutting edge industry insight that only IDD can deliver.
  • Investment Dealers' Digest one-month trial subscription
  • IDDMagazine.com one-month trial subscription
  • Free e-newsletters
  • Free whitepapers

It's A Deal

By Tom Granahan, IDD Magazine

March 24, 2009

AIG'eez': Will It Ever Stop?

It was 20 years ago today that the tragic Exxon Valdez oil spill coated the pristine Prince William Sound in Alaska with a tanker full of gooey sludge. The memories of the blackened coastline and oil-coated birds naturally had me thinking of one thing: AIG.

To this day I have an acquaintance who won’t patronize Exxon stations. He’d prefer to pay extra, if need be, to avoid doing business with what he feels is a morally bankrupt corporation. Say what you want of that –- I’ve heard compelling arguments that Exxon got off easy and equally thought-provoking examples of overzealous “Big Oil” bashing –- but thinking about it today it hit me: if you’re white with rage at AIG, just cancel your policies.

Just as there are plenty of gas stations dotting the landscape, there’s surely no shortage of insurers eager to take your business. Sure it’s annoying to have to deal with the extra paper work, and potentially higher premiums, but, hey, righteousness has its cost.

I spent the better part of this morning listening with one ear to the abomination going on in the Congressional hearings tied to AIG bonuses. (And that was one ear too many.) One of the legislators couldn’t even pronounce the Treasury Secretary’s name, and many of the others were too busy making their questions fit their own answers that it didn’t really matter what Geithner or Bernanke said. Heck, at this point we’ve probably blown more in costs on D.C. hearings, and lost productivity from the time we've spent lamenting the compensation issue, than the bonuses themselves were actually worth.

If you’re sure that everyone at AIG is the devil incarnate and the company should go away, just do your part and stop doing business with them. A small slice of capitalism might feel good right about now.

Recent Posts

PE's Forecast

If the clouds would just go away for more than a day, perhaps the summer will arrive in time to give dealmakers a break from the M&A industry’s perfect storm.

A Day For The Ages

A Dow Jones Industrial Average with no Citi and no GM? No surprise, but somehow it still hurts.

Starting Small May Lead To Something Big

Despite the ever-mushrooming number of independent M&A advisory boutiques, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the middle-market dealmaking landscape has changed.

It's A Joke, Right?

How can the consortium offer for GM's Saturn Distribution Corp., announced by a mysterious private equity firm named Black Oak Partners, be taken seriously?

Index of Posts

0 Comments

Be the first to comment on this post using the section below.

Add Your Comments...

Already Registered?

If you have already registered to Money Management Executive, please use the form below to login. When completed you will immeditely be directed to post a comment.

Forgot your password?

Not Registered?

You must be registered to post a comment. Click here to register.

Tom Granahan

Tom Granahan is the Editor of IDD. He has more than 15 years of financial-journalism experience, having written about the stock market for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal for several years. He also supervised the Newswires' U.S. bureaus, and was the founding editor of Dow Jones Market Talk, which some consider to be one of the earliest forms of financial-news blogging. He graduated with a BA in journalism from Temple University in his hometown of Philadelphia.

Related Items