AIG, bailing out companies and all that jazz...

[cynatnite]

AIG is one of the largest international insurance and financial services organizations in the world, with operations in more than 130 countries and jurisdictions. AIG member companies serve commercial, institutional and individual customers through the most extensive worldwide property-casualty and life insurance networks of any insurer. In the United States, AIG companies are the largest underwriters of commercial and industrial insurance and AIG American General is a top-ranked life insurer.

AIG's global businesses also include financial services, retirement services and asset management. AIG's financial service businesses include aircraft leasing, financial products, trading, market making and financial advice. AIG's growing global consumer finance business is led in the United States by American General Finance. AIG also owns several of the largest U.S. retirement services businesses through AIG Retirement and AIG SunAmerica, and the largest network of independent broker-dealers through AIG Advisor Group; through these subsidiaries AIG runs asset management for the individual and institutional markets, with specialized investment management capabilities in equities, fixed income, alternative investments and real estate.

AIG is also the principal sponsor of English football team Manchester United and the Japan Open Tennis Championships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIG#Business

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert about Wall Street, the economy or any of that jazz so please forgive me if I'm way off base. The government allowed a lot of merging to happen and companies melded into one another. They grew by leaps and bounds into massive conglomerates which are so large that it's difficult to know exactly how much was absorbed. Rather than a company failing and putting a small group of people out of work...we're now faced with financial turmoil and uncertainty because of the impact is much larger and affects not just financial markets, but also causes political stability. These companies are that big.

People are losing their jobs and their savings. We're not talking just a few hundred...thousands of people are going to be tremendously affected. This will inevitably impact everyone else.

I'm thinking that there was no choice but to bail out AIG. Going under might have been more than our economy could take. Hell, I'm not confident the world's markets could have absorbed such an impact.

The question is...

By allowing these companies to continuously merge into one another has the world economy been harmed by such a lack of diversification?

I know the media has. Five corporations own the televised media in this country.

Can the same be said of companies like AIG? Lehman Brothers had a lot of subsidiaries as well.

Or maybe this is a damned if you do and a damned if you don't type of scenario. :shrug: