Ben Bernanke renAIGs - does one more bail-out

This evening Dr. Bernanke, together with the Treasury's Hank Paulson, cooked up a scheme to bail out AIG. After refusing AIG a $40 billion loan over the weekend, Ben made a 180 degree turn and now has doled out $85 billion of public money to AIG as a loan. Under the agreement, the government got warrants that, if converted to common stock, would give it nearly 80% ownership of the company.
While Lehman is left wondering why it did not get the "preferential" Ben treatment, tax payers should be concerned about these grossly gross bailouts. While Helicopter Ben and the High Flying Treasury are raining money on Wall Street, no one is being held accountable for this tsunami. Neither Mr. Paulson nor Dr. Bernanke nor Mr. Bush is putting up his own money.

Of course, after the independent Congressional Budget Office said that "the proposed government rescue of the nation’s two mortgage finance giants will appear on the federal budget as a $25 billion cost to taxpayers- according to the NYT, "less than a week after the government took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the White House announced that there is no reason at this time to account for the companies in the federal budget.That is great news for officials who prefer to hide the cost of the bailout since it is due, in large part, to their failure to adequately regulate the financial markets and steward the economy. But it is an insult to taxpayers, whose money is at risk, and it is a reckless gambit."

And we professors are expected to teach and inculcate ethical values in students...It would be unethical to teach ethical values in this climate of gross excess and wilful neglect of one's obligations.