I agree with you, I think at some point AIG will be disected and be made to pay back the tax payers. But don't you think the government will do that at a point later in time when AIG has regained some of its value? At this point I think the government has a such a huge stake in AIG it can't afford to let it fail. How would the government look if, after pumping all this money into AIG, they just sit back now and let it fail? All that taxpayer money, gone. They have no choice now but to nurse it back to health. It's the only way they are going to recoup all that taxpayer money.
And let's not forget about the fact that Bernanke and the rest of this administration is probably gaining more and more confidence on their strategy on keeping AIG afloat in order to stabilize this economy....The markets have stopped plummeting, (at least for the time being) and recent housing numbers have looked more encouraging. I'm sure they attribute some of this stabilization to the strategy they have used so far to stabilize this economy. Part of that strategy included keeping AIG afloat.