AIG has a checkered past with not being straight with their balance sheet and financial disclosures. Why would we be surprised now that the shenanigans of Greenberg are still in play? I do not feel any sympathy for any of the decision makers involved with the risky loan guarantees and the attraction of easy money. I certainly want them to feel the same pain the line and staff ex-employees of Lehman Brothers are feeling. However, according to the Insurance Journal, the concern about AIG is already affecting their personal lines of insurance, and I don’t want AIG insurance agents to feel any pain.

But those emotions have nothing to do with rational thinking about what would happen if AIG fell apart. And all the other institutions that Treasurer Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke want to rescue. An unchecked crisis of confidence, well deserved and all, would crater our economy and you and I would suffer most. So, you and I have to watch the lesser of 2 evils – avoid a depression like the 30’s, or pay incredible taxes and incur a huge federal debt to keep the economy from totally tanking.

I would like it best if we severely punished those high stakes rollers who bought and sold bad debt with abandonment. But it is more important to me that Congress act more like Nike and just do it. Set up an organization to start bailing out those bad debts that are ubiquitous through-out the country and economy.

Paulson and Bernanke have the most information at hand, are very capable thinkers, and have the responsibility to fix this. You and I will suffer, but probably suffer less than the alternative.

If you haven’t voted on our AIG poll, please do so! And hopefully, things will quiet down and we can start focusing on insurance marketing.