Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
ace--the case for aig being "too big to fail" came in part from the fact that its activities were intertwined with investements held by european and asian governments---this point was made from the outset---
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If I assumed what you wrote was true (about $20 billion of the $175 billion bailout money went to European banks), why would I, as a taxpayer, care about the risk for profit deals between AIG and Europeon and Asian governments?
However, your premise is false. AIG bet big in the area of credit default swaps and they started having problems in 2005. After Greenberg was forced out by NY AG, Sptizer, AIG lost its AAA rating. During this process there was political pressures to adjust and restate earnings, which further added to the growing lack of confidence in the company. This lead to the need to post more collateral in a environment where their bets on real estate assets was declining. The spiral started and then began to accelerate. The management team, instead of managing the new environment bet bigger on real estate causing the collapse of the company. They bet big. They bet wrong. They bet bigger. And they were still wrong. The only people at risk, were those who went along for the ride. If AIG's bets had paid off this would not be an issue and you can bet they would have done everything possible to minimize the taxes due on the profits.
So, you can believe that they had to be bailed-out and buy into the superficial garbage being fed to the public, I don't. If you want to describe me as ridiculous, blind, etc., for my view feel free - but that won't change reality.
---------- Post added at 05:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:49 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by dippin
Do you know who is insured by AIG? What they insure against?
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AIG has many subsidiary companies. The insurance companies are regulated by state agencies. Insurance company regulation is pretty tightly controlled with clearly defined reserve requirements and each state has insurance guarantee programs to protect insureds from failed insurance companies. AIG is in virtually every line of insurance. The insurance companies are healthy, and have value. The "investment banking" portion of the company is the problem.
Here is a link to their latest 10K filing with the SEC:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...74794e10vk.htm