AIG

The AIG employees who are the subject of so much venom because they have received massive bonuses while their organizatio is being propped up by $170 billion in taxpayer money are not even in the United States. They are in London.

Back on March 6th, I noted that the nationalized insurance company AIG had settled Credit Default Swaps contracts with a number of counterparties at the top of the market. In effect, AIG was offering a hidden subsidy to its counterparties…

The large bonuses at AIG have sparked yet another wave of revulsion amongst American taxpeayers. And rightfully so. This company has cost taxpayers $170 billion and counting and yet the bonuses of the same individuals complicit in the…

Don Kohn's testimony before the Senate Banking committee was so outrageous that I feel compelled to re-post the first paragraphs of this article from Willem Buiter about the moral hazard it represents. Basically, the U.S. government…

A massive $61.7 billion loss for AIG - that is the quarterly loss for the insurance giant, a record for the world. That comes to a loss of $465 $465,000 every minute of every day in that quarter. The full-year loss comes in over $100…

This is in via Reuters: American International Group Inc is close to a deal with the U.S. government that would ease the terms of its bailout, provide a further equity commitment and help it pay down debt, a person familiar with the matter…

Why did Lehman really fail? The equity window is effectively closed for most financial services companies. This fact was the true trigger for the meltdown in AIG and Lehman and the problems at WaMu, HBOS and Merrill Lynch. Moreover, it…

The meltdown of the world's largest insurer AIG (AIG) makes the stakes of this credit crisis plain to all. In my view, the AIG situation and the subsequent turmoil in financial markets could have been avoided. The markets were clearly on…

At 9:00 PM EDT, the Federal Reserve posted a statement on its website that it has decided to offer AIG an $85 billion line of credit at a penalty rate in return for all of AIG as collateral. In addition, the Federal Reserve will receive an…

One reason I came out this morning against the Fed and the U.S. Treasury's decision to allow Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt is the arbitrariness of its decision-making process. Lehman is easily more of a systemic risk than Bear Stearns and…