AIG has extended its hands to the government, palms facing upward, and so have the banks in order to ask for billions of dollars in corporate welfare. Now lining up behind them are life insurance companies, according to The Boston Globe.
These insurers are trying to convince the government that they need a bailout in order to stay afloat, and importantly, if they fail it will send the market deeper into chaos. The article says:
They argue federal funds could stabilize their trillions in investments and warn that any failure of a life insurer could dry up a key source of corporate financing.
It’s amazing how corporate America and the banks all shamelessly line up for corporate welfare. Yet they vigorously extol the virtues of the free-market (which does not now and has really never existed) when it enables them to earn huge profits and take home gargantuan pay packages.
Perhaps what is most amazing is that the government hands them billions without any real conditions. Banks, they say, we’d like you to use the money to provide loans to people, but we’re not going to go so far as actually require it in writing.
I regularly litigate cases on behalf of beneficiaries against the life insurance industry. Trust me, they show no compassion when they refuse to pay on a policy to a surviving spouse who is in need.
So please don’t believe their propaganda, President Bush and Secretary Paulson. We know your hard hearts only begin to soften in the discrete situation where a wealthy corporate leader is on the verge of losing millions — we know this all too well — but please don’t believe this propaganda and don’t bail out the life insurance companies. Please.
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