Bet that AIG baby (and his parents) are crying now

I was watching MSNBC and CNBC this morning, listening to the folks on "Morning Joe" and on "Squawk Box" talking all about how greed is the primary cause of the latest market meltdown, and sitting through all sorts of commercials when it hit me: I haven't seen any of those cute, funny AIG ads lately.

You know the AIG ads I'm talking about, the ones narrated by Stockard Channing and featuring some cute kid, like this one with the "laughing baby":



Bet that kid (and his folks) are crying now. (Btw, if laughter can add eight years to your life, how many years does crying shorten it by?)

Or remember this cute AIG ad, featuring the adorably precocious child who gets up in the middle night and pads down the hall to his parents' room, telling them he is worried about his family's financial future?



Ah, the Irony, Guys. Bet that kid's having nightmares now!

I probably should not be making light of this situation. I own a bunch of AIG stock, which was worth $2.05 at yesterday's close, and I have family and friends who work at AIG (or did as of yesterday), who I know are not responsible for the current mess and are no doubt freaking out -- and wondering about their family's financial future. (For more about the AIG fiasco, and to see CNBC "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo's September 16 one-on-one "interview," for lack of a better word, with former AIG CEO and chairman and crook Hank Greenberg, click here.)

But the AIG situation has me pissed, pissed about all the mismanagement and excessive risk taking and greed that we all now painfully realize has been going on, for YEARS, at not just AIG but all over Wall Street and even Main Street -- and what it's going to do to our tax bills. (Cause guess where the government is going to have to get at least some of that bailout money, folks? From US, the taxpayers.)

And while I do believe the market will (eventually) make a comeback (which is why I have not liquidated my increasingly meager portfolio and shoved what's left under our 15-year-old mattress), I don't see it happening any time soon.

In the meantime, I'm heading to Mohegan Sun, where life is truly a crap shoot -- and at least you have fun and get free drinks while losing money.