Financial Case Review: The AIG Scandal 2005

The recession caused a loss of 2.9 million jobs, representing a 3% drop in payroll employment. Many people blamed the recession on President Jimmy Carter, who was in office from 1977-1981. Lots of people blamed Carter because the recession started during his first term. Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States, and in August of 1981 he signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which was a three-year tax cut plan. Reagan’s economic plan gave hope to the citizens of the United States that the recession would end soon.

An American Apparel store in Los Angeles had to lay off 500 workers because of the recent city increase to $15 an hour (Sherk). This number is shocking, and American Apparel responded saying, they cannot start pay at $15, instead wages should increase as the amount of sales increases. This makes since, for a company cannot spend money they are not receiving. After extensive research and studies, economists have concluded that for every 10% increase in minimum wage, the country could see a 7% decrease in unemployment (Sherk). This could cost the United States over 7 million jobs.

Discovery Bilbo continued with his obscure trading up until 1 April 2000, when he left Hobbiton to fly to Erebor. The bank’s auditors finally discovered the fraud around the same time that the Bank's chairman, Gandalf, received a confession note from him. After the collapse, several observers, including Bilbo himself, placed much of the blame on the bank's own deficient internal control and risk management practices. A number of people raised concerns over Bilbo's activities but were ignored. 2.2 Damages His activities had generated losses totalling 827 million clams, twice the bank's available trading capital.

9/11 had brought Al-Qaeda the international notoriety that yearned through the live broadcasts. In addition, 9/11 affected both Al-Qaeda and the US’s finances. Bin Laden gloated that “every dollar al-Qaeda invested in the operation cost the US economy $1 million” (91). In contrast, America suffered economic consequences due to the attacks: Wall Street stocks lost 16 percent of their value and airlines companies laid off 170,000 employees. Initially, 9/11 seems like a victory for Al-Qaeda.

The new consumer culture is what led to 16.5 million shares being sold in one day, which was detrimental to the stock market as it caused the crash on October 29, 1929. Many lost a great deal of money, marking the start of the Great Depression. The excessive consumer culture also led to a vast majority of prosperity going towards the industrial economy instead of the

In 2010, 15.75 million of America’s 70 million children were classified as living in poverty. Countries have attempted to end poverty for many years now but it seems that the numbers continue to increase. Some people blame the government while others blame the individual for their own situation. The article also addresses public attitudes towards welfare recipients which tends to be negative. Many think that the welfare system is only hurting the American economy.

You have a new plan, “New College Compact,” to spend $350 billion over ten years to decrease the amount of college (Kelly). Because the price on college is so high, politicians have gone about decreasing tuitions, but this is not the best way to do it. There are positives to debt-free college plans, but the negatives outweigh all the pros. One extremely

This was to shore up confidence and flood the economy with liquidity. This was also the main influence to decrease the fund rate to 1.75% by the end of 2001. However, 9/11 was followed by a series of confidence battering shocks which slammed the economy (the scandal of Enron, the space shuttle Columbia disaster, the war in Iraq, hurricane Katrina). To counter each of these shocks, the Fed were forced to lower interest rates even more. By July 2003, after thirteen cuts, Federal Funds rates had dropped as low as 1% (Farrokh

The final financial metric to look at is WACC. Before the debt leverage, Blaine’s WACC was only the cost of equity, as they had no debt. Cost of equity was calculated using the 10 year UST rate, 5.02%, because it is a good measurement of the risk free rate, plus the firm’s beta, 0.56, multiplied by the risk premium, which we concluded to be 5%. This gave Blaine, when unlevered, a WACC of 7.82%. When taking the $40 million debt and $100 million cash buyout of stocks into account, cost of debt is now a factor.

New tariffs were placed on woolens, iron, glass, hemp, and salt. Insofar as tariffs discouraged the sale of foreign goods in the United States, they reduced the ability of British and French traders to buy southern cotton because of the loss of export income. This situation worsened already existing problems of low cotton prices and thousands of acres of farmland exhausted from perennial planting. Compounding the South Carolinian’s malaise was growing anger over the North’s moral criticism of slavery. The unexpected passage of the Tariff of 1828, called the “tariff of abominations” by its critics because it pushed rates up to almost 50 percent of the value of imported goods.

The main reason for the decline in tourism to New York was the issue on security and terrorism. In order to get extensive security this places a price on the world economy in the terms of a decline in productivity growth and more restrictions in the free shipping of goods, services and capital. In the following three months after 9/11 attack, cost the city’s economy 143,000 jobs and a $2.8 billion in lost wages, which led to effects on unemployment issues. According to the webpage “Economic Impact Analysis on the 9/11 Attack on New York City” financial services and insurance create over 75% of lower Manhattan’s $73 billion in economic output. These examples show that the 9/11 attack had a domino effect on New York City spending budget in the way that a loss of a source of revenue in area is the loss in another.

From the two separate land and building sales, HCC is taking in $10,563,161 for the property. Recall that HCC invested $16,102,702. That means at least $5,539,541 in tax dollars were lost on the Sienna location. HCC sold a $16 million dollar investment for $10.5 million. The way HCC is passing this off as zero-dollar loss because the deficit is filled by grant and tax dollars.

“The US Mints budget in 2010 was 27.4 million dollars in penny production”(source 1). The time wasted counting money could add up to over 700 million dollars, this money could be spent on something important. For example some countries don 't even use them, one of those countries is canada they stopped minting them in 2013. They didn 't actually ban them they just stopped minting them but made them legal to use(Source 1). In conclusion the penny cost more to produce than it is worth, so it 's not worth making and most countries don 't even mint them anymore.

The year prior— 2010— taxpayers lost $27.4 million, and in 2009, they lost $19.8 million (Source #1). In Source #2, the text states "Pennies are "too heavy and not cost-effective to ship,”" You may ask, "what does cost-effective mean? Well cost-effective means "producing desirable results without costing a lot of money" (Source #2). As we can see, they cannot produce pennies without more money than the pennies

Many people believe that The Great Depression began when the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929. In the mid to late 1920’s the stock market grew majorly, the stock prices skyrocketed gaining interest from all kinds of people. As stock prices continued to rise, the market became very poplar. Eventually the stock prices started to fall during September through early October, and by October 24 the market was starting to crash. On “Black Thursday” (October 24,1929) 12.9 million shares were traded in order for investors to save what little money they could.