The Political Whore

By Al Coryell
PoHo correspondent

RECESSIONOMICS

Question: Do you think the Federal Reserve is going to be able to guide us out of this economic catastrophe?

I’m going to tell you a story -  a story of corruption, deceit, greed and political intrigue. As it turns out, a true story, one stranger than fiction as true stories usually are. But amazingly, this story is little known by most of you, for the parties whom the story is about do a masterful job of hiding their true intentions while convincing you they are your best friends. They insist you need them, and without them your lives would be chaos. It’s all smoke, of course. But I assure you, most of you believe them because the machine they control is incredibly powerful. So powerful, in fact, that… well I get ahead of myself.

The story begins just after the turn of the 20th century, when, in 1910, seven men board a train in Hoboken, N.J.

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Edward Liddy, public enemy No. 1 in today’s hypernews cycle, is set to testify in front of a Congressional subcommittee about the millions of tax-subsidized dollars that are being paid to AIG employees as a thank you for tanking the company and forcing a taxpayer bailout. Liddy is AIG’s chairman and CEO since late last year, and let’s make this clear, he didn’t create the mess there; he is trying to clean it up at the request of our government.

Nonetheless, the public demands a head, and today, that head is Ed’s.

From Liddy’s prepared remarks, these gems:

Mistakes were made at AIG on a scale few coudl have ever imagined possible. The most critical of those mistakes was that the company strayed from its core competencies in the insurance business. This was typified by the creation of what grew to become an internal hedge fund, which then became substantially overexposed to market risk.

And:

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