The Treasury Department is about to rake it in.
The U.S. Treasury’s sale of its remaining stake in American International Group Inc (AIG.N) will leave taxpayers with a profit of nearly $23 billion – more than the next three most successful bailouts combined.
The government’s profit on the deal is a turnabout from what was one of the most reviled bailouts of the financial crisis.
The 2008 rescue later spurred a senator to suggest top executives at the insurer consider suicide. The Government Accountability Office at one point suggested there was a real chance taxpayers would never be repaid in full.
Yet they were, with $22.7 billion in total returns, including the proceeds of the sale Treasury launched Monday night, AIG said. The government provided AIG with some $182 billion of support.
Not bad for a plan that was predicted by Republicans to be a huge loss for the taxpayer, and further proof that Barack Obama is really lousy at being a socialist.
a plan that was predicted by Republicans to be a huge loss for the taxpayer
And had it been a GOTea plan, it would have been. That’s the difference between seeing government as one solution (of many), and seeing government as The Problem.