Day: June 15, 2009

How Bad Is AIG?

Do you remember the “Miracle on the Hudson”?  You know the smart plane captain who made a splash landing in the Hudson River in NYC and saved the lives of all aboard the flight?  Remember?

Now, do you remmber AIG?  You know the massive Wall Street entity that gets lots of government cash to help save it from failing?  Or the massive Wall Street entity that paid millions upon millions of taxpayer money to the execs?  You know the massive Wall Street entity that was one of the main players at causing the economic meltdown we are in now?

Now you are asking just what the hell do those two occurances have in common.  Well hang on to your butt.

AIG’s  property and casuality business is balking at paying claims that were filed by passengers on the ill fated flight.

“It’s like telling me, ‘We aren’t responsible for this. This is your trauma. You deal with it,’ ” Ms. Sosa said.

In one exasperated conversation with an A.I.G. claims official, she invoked the taxpayer bailout, saying she doubted Congress and the Obama administration would approve of the stonewalling. The official “told me their division didn’t get a cent from the bailout,” she said.

“They really cannot row their own boat, totally, because they’ve got other people that they are making decisions for,” he said, explaining that an aviation liability policy typically spreads the risks among 8 or 10 insurers, with one lead underwriter — in this case A.I.G. — handling claims on behalf of the group. (Although A.I.G. is not the lead underwriter on the missing Air France flight, it is part of an insurance pool with potential liability.)

“Even though they’re giving the passengers a hard time, eventually they will be compensated to some extent,” he said. “There’s no big pot because there’s no death. But there’s still mental distress, and it is a compensatable illness which, eventually, in my opinion, they deserve. They went through hell.”

Sounds like a typical ploy by an insurance company….drag their feet and the people will settle for whatever they can get…it worked for them after Katrina so why not try again?

It Is Tobacco Again

The Philly Inquirer reports:

The tobacco-control movement celebrated another milestone yesterday as the U.S. Senate easily passed a bill giving the government unprecedented power over the making and marketing of tobacco products.

Supporters say the law will enable the Food and Drug Administration to protect children from the addictive lure of cigarettes, make tobacco products safer, and, ultimately, save some of the 400,000 lives lost annually to tobacco-related illness.

But like every victory in the decades-long battle to curb the tobacco industry, the latest one comes with limitations, compromises, and inherent conflicts. Even many antismoking activists doubt the law will have the intended public-health impact.

Tobacco companies will have to disclose their product research and ingredients – secrets previously revealed only in court cases – and seek approval for new products. The FDA will publish an annual list of harmful ingredients by brand and can ban the most dangerous of the estimated 6,000 chemicals in cigarettes, except nicotine, the key to addiction. Nicotine, the bill says, can only be reduced.

How flippin’ wonderful….the US will now dictate to an industry more so than in the past.  Tobacco MUST comply.  In the same vain….why not go to more extremes?  Force car companies to make cars that get 50 mpg by next model year.  Or dictate to the Insurance comnpanies what their price sand pay outs should be.  Pick anything….and let the government dictate to it….the conditions of their business.

Smoking is a bad habit…but it is just that a habit…..everyone who smokes knows it could kill, them at anytime….that it is extremely unhealthy…anti-smoking people have won…now move on to anything industry and sure and control them….okay?