The US government has now bought an insurance company. Or rather, the Wall Street investment banks used the US taxpayer to buy AIG, the world’s largest insurance company for $85 billion.

US taxpayers paid $85 billion for a company no one else would touch in order that banks would not have to reprice their bad investments. This makes battered women who return for more spousal abuse look like fighters.

It has just been announced that Hank Greenberg, AIG's largest shareholder, will be allowed to bid on AIG assets. Instead of being wiped out in the US takeover, the US has allowed AIG shareholders to keep 20 % of their company and now they're going to allow Greenberg to come back in and cherry pick the remains.

 Why? The answer is clear. Greenberg is an insider. He was once considered to head the CIA but his past was so dirty, he wasn't nominated. Afterwards, he was forced out as head of AIG after it was discovered that he and his sons who controlled the largest US insurance companies had rigged insurance bids forcing corporation to pay more for coverage.

Did Greenberg go to jail? No. Did Greenberg get wiped out when his company was headed for bankruptcy and needed a taxpayer bailout? No. Greenberg, AIG's largest shareholder, was allowed to keep 20 % of his stake in a company that was headed for the toilet and will now be allowed to cherry pick what remains as a result of taxpayer money AND the US is now on the hook for AIG's liabilities, liabilities which include billions in insurance policies guaranteeing subprime CDOs.

The truth is that sometime between 1776 and 2008 the US government ceased being "our" government. It's "their" government and we are its patsies. Will you see this on the news? Will you hear this from your neighbors?

No, like the good Germans who said theywere unaware of the Nazi death camps, Americans are just as ignorant of what "their" government is doing. But like in Germany, the ignorance is willful.

We have crossed the line and Americans don't even know it. Ignorance is the prerequisite for control and it is everywhere. Edward R. Morrow once said "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves". He was right.

And where’s the outrage? Trust me, there won’t be any. If only King George had the present bunch of Americans to deal with instead of the Americans of 1776. we’d still be English citizens. And we might as well be. I guess a couple of hundred years and a pile credit cards is all it took to steal America from a citizenry in a self induced stupor of ignorance and denial.

This is a disgrace—our disgrace. Once the greatest nation in the world. Now, no longer and its citizens don’t even know it.

Consternation, rage, anger..but, in the end, it's just sadness. Sadness for what this nation has become. 

Darryl Robert Schoon

www.survivethecrisis.com

www.drschoon.com