This'n'That August 31st[AIGInvestment;FluffyCarePolls;PhattKennedy]

AIG: Did You Buy In? [If you bought AIG after it failed, this might be the time to sell!! The porkulus bill propped it up to the tune of a September '008 bailout of $85Billion; followed by another $70Billion, late in 2008. In early March, '009 another $30Billion was added. That's "a tidy sum" of free [read: Taxpayer's] money!! It appears from the article below that the senior management doesn't seem to know how to manage this wealth; now may be time to dump the stock in favor of profits over a tax write-off!!] Shares of AIG (AIG) have surged 53% in the last week, but Barron's Andrew Bary warns the stock's spectacular gains can't erase the fact that the company's likely to face continuing troubles. The government has an 80% equity stake in the insurer and shares look overpriced. The current rally is likely a combination of a short squeeze, hope for a larger role for former CEO Hank Greenberg and optimism that a recovering market will help AIG's portfolio improve. Given its complicated financials and limited communication from management, it's difficult for investors to evaluate the financial health of AIG. After backing out the government's $42B in preferred stock, AIG's common equity falls to $15B, or $21.80 per share. Stripping out $6.4B of goodwill assets and around $14B of a "prepaid commitment asset" connected to the government's backstop of AIG, Barron's calculates the company has negative tangible common shareholder equity. Investors interested in AIG would do better to consider the company's debt, rather than its common stock. In particular, AIG has 8.25% bonds due in 2018 trading for around 80 cents on the dollar, for a yield of 11.84%. AIG also has junior subordinated debentures (AVF) that yield 13% and are senior to the government's preferred shares, though they rank below senior debt. In early July, Joshua Shanker, then with Citigroup, wrote there was a "70% chance that the equity at AIG is zero" and cut his price target to $14. New CEO Robert Benmosche has promised to repay the government in full and still turn a profit for shareholders. However, the fact that AIG used $2.4B from recent asset sales to improve the capital position of its property-casualty unit rather than paying down some of its government debt raises questions about the insurer's ability to repay its bailout. Benmosche previously served as MetLife's (MET) chairman and CEO, and is still a MetLife shareholder. This could spell trouble for talks about a potential deal to sell AIG's Alico unit to MetLife. American Opinions: Fluffycare Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by Fluffy obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.

• A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.
• More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate began.
• Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those under 30 favor the plan while 56% of those over 65 are opposed.
• Among senior citizens, 46% are strongly opposed.
• Predictably, 69% of Democrats favor the plan, while 79% of Republicans oppose it.
• Yet while 44% of Democratic voters strongly favor the reform effort, 70% of GOP voters are strongly opposed to it.
• Most notable, however, is the opposition among voters not affiliated with either party. Sixty-two percent (62%) of unaffiliated voters oppose the health care plan, and 51% are strongly opposed. This marks an uptick in strong opposition among both Republicans and unaffiliateds, while the number of strongly supportive Democrats is unchanged.

Phatt Kennedy--A "Closet Communist?" In the spring of 1983, during perhaps the tensest moment in the Cold War since the Cuban missile crisis — having called the Soviet Union the evil empire that it was, Reagan was preparing to deploy Pershing missiles in Europe — Kennedy sent a message to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. This would be the same Yuri Andropov who had been the director of the KGB and had played central roles in both the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring. Arguing that Reagan, not Andropov, threatened world peace, Kennedy offered to help Anropov contain Reagan by manipulating American opinion. Teddy Kennedy did indeed prove charming — irresistibly so. But let’s look at the record whole. If Kennedy had had his way, he wouldn’t have stopped at charming Reagan. He’d have rendered Reagan utterly ineffective. Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy. "On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov." Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. "The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations," the memorandum stated. "These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign." Kennedy made Andropov a couple of specific offers. First he offered to visit Moscow. "The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA." Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda. Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. "A direct appeal ... to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. ... If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. ... The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side." Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time--and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism. Kennedy's motives? "Like other rational people," the memorandum explained, "[Kennedy] is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations." But that high-minded concern represented only one of Kennedy's motives. "Tunney remarked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988," the memorandum continued. "Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president." Kennedy proved eager to deal with Andropov--the leader of the Soviet Union, a former director of the KGB and a principal mover in both the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring--at least in part to advance his own political prospects. In 1992, Tim Sebastian published a story about the memorandum in the London Times. Here in the U.S., Sebastian's story received no attention. In his 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, historian Paul Kengor reprinted the memorandum in full. "The media," Kengor says, "ignored the revelation." "The document," Kengor continues, "has stood the test of time. I scrutinized it more carefully than anything I've ever dealt with as a scholar. I showed the document to numerous authorities who deal with Soviet archival material. No one has debunked the memorandum or shown it to be a forgery. Kennedy's office did not deny it." Why bring all this up now? No evidence exists that Andropov ever acted on the memorandum--within eight months, the Soviet leader would be dead--and now that Kennedy himself has died even many of the former senator's opponents find themselves grieving. Yet precisely because Kennedy represented such a commanding figure--perhaps the most compelling liberal of our day--we need to consider his record in full. Doing so, it turns out, requires pondering a document in the archives of the politburo. When President Reagan chose to confront the Soviet Union, calling it the evil empire that it was, Sen. Edward Kennedy chose to offer aid and comfort to General Secretary Andropov. On the Cold War, the greatest issue of his lifetime, Kennedy got it wrong. Til Nex'Time....