Goldman Sachs Lending To Aircraft Leasing Company Owned by AIG

Editor's Note:I wrote and published this piece for GoldmanSachs666.com http://www.goldmansachs666.com/2010/02/goldman-sachs-lending-to-aircraft.html.

by Larry Rubinoff | Wednesday, February 24, 2010 

I just could not resist writing this post.  The headline in Bloomberg.com reads:  "AIG Plane Unit Seeks $750 Million Loan Through BofA, Goldman.  Ok, so BofA and GS are lending big money to a big company.  What's wrong with that?  Here is what's wrong with that.  This loan is to taxpayer overly bailed out AIG.  Now, I thought we bailed out AIG so GS could get the back door payment (just kidding, I know that was not the reason) and most of all to keep the world's economy from crashing (most of it did anyway).  

So, what is AIG doing in the plane business and did any of our bailout money go to save a plane leasing company?  You bet it did.

ILFC (the AIG unit-explanation added), one of the biggest customers for Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS, is seeking to borrow outside of AIG for the first time since losing access to its traditional sources after the insurer’s rescue in September 2008. New York-based AIG used U.S. bailout funds to prop up ILFC with a $1.7 billion credit line in March and $2 billion in October.  (emphasis added but cannot be emphasized enough!)

Outraged?  You bet I am!

Our bailout money bailed out a non financial industry and they are not even in the automobile business.  Now, Goldman and BofA are going to use more of our bailout money to loan this AIG owned company some more.

How many more of these "insider", "backdoor" deals are going on?  How much more of our money are these Too Big To Fail Fat Cats going to use to keep themselves and their buddies and affililiates in the "green".  What happened to let em fail just like the thousands upon thousands of small business in this country that were allowed to fail?  Small business, that produces the most jobs, the most taxes and maintains the disappearing middle class?


Do I care if an airplane leasing company goes out of business?  No I don't.  Do I care if Boeing loses its biggest customer?  Not really.  Do I care if Airbus SAS - not even an American company fails?  Absolutely NOT!  I am outraged even more just when the rage was beginning to subside just a little.

“We anticipate selling some ILFC assets in the future,” Robert Benmosche, AIG’s chief executive officer, said in a statement this month when the company announced the departure of Steven Udvar-Hazy as leader of the Los Angeles-based plane unit. “We continue to review other options, including accessing the capital markets through secured debt financing.” 

Wait a minute.  You have assets and you are considering selling them in the future?  Isn't that what should have been done before your owner - AIG - gave you our bailout money?  Isn't that what you should be doing now?  Isn't that what people are doing everyday all over the country?  And isn't that the ONLY alternative most small business has to raise capital?  Wake Up America!

Remember the old saying where there is smoke there is fire.  Well, the smoke is pretty thick around Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and AIG but there is no fire because the likes of Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke and the Administration - past and present - keep putting it out at our expense.  We starve and they thrive with our money.  What a smoke screen they have put up thinking we Americans are that stupid.  Guess again, we are not and we are coming out of the ether and we will blow right through their smoke.

But there is more insult to this travesty of justice against the American people.

Mark Herr, a spokesman for AIG, Kerrie McHugh, a Bank of America spokeswoman, and Michael DuVally, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, declined to comment. 

Hmmmm? (The onlly literary word for the above comment)  But read on, there is more.

Cut to Junk
ILFC is seeking loans less than a week after being cut to junk status by Fitch Ratings on concern about whether AIG would continue to provide support. The downgrade affected about $18 billion of debt, Fitch said in a Feb. 18 statement.  (emphasis once again added)

AIG's, International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) company is JUNK to begin with.  Didn't a man by the name of Milkin go to prison for selling "junk" bonds?  I guess Mr. Milkin played the game a little to early - before it became fashionable and lawful to peddle junk.  At least I can say one thing about Mr. Milkin I cannot say about the rest of the band of crooks, he was up front in telling people what he was selling.  He called them JUNK BONDS not things like credit default swaps, derivatives, AAA rated MBS's and CDO's - all fancy names for junk to knowingly  mislead investors and other governments around the world.

I believe the world's financial markets would be better off without AIG, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and all the rest of this band of thieves.   We should have let them fail and used the trillions of dollars on our own citizens.  Every trillion dollar would have given about $300 to every person in this country and that is money they would have put back into the economy.  Poof, no Recession, real money flowing to real people circulating in our economy.  How many trillions of dollars will we have given away to the AIG's of this country?  One, two, three or more?  Do the math.  What I just suggested is "real" trickle down economics.

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• ILFC Announces Proposed $750 Million Senior Secured Term Loan (eon.businesswire.com)
• ILFC CEO Steven Udvar-Hazy to Retire (eon.businesswire.com)