Doh!
It is starting to leak that AIG (you know, that group that was “too big to fail” so it had to get bailed out by Uncle Sam) knew of its high risk, so the surprised look everyone was wearing on the day Uncle Sam stepped in was as fake as Lisa Rinna’s lips.
Emails inside AIG reveal their playbook of realizing an impending, acknowledging a crisis, twiddling their thumbs about a crisis and ultimately did nothing about the crisis. AIG’s own risk assessment was either insanely wrong OR they just got unlucky and that less than 1% chance everything would crumble just happened to occur despite shouting from the mountaintops that nothing was wrong.
What do you think- is this a case of economic bad luck or does it smell like an Enron style coverup?
Real Estate Feeds
December 31, 2009 at 5:05 am
AIG Insiders Knew of Impending Doom Back in 2007: Doh!
It is starting to leak that AIG (you know, that group that w… https://bit.ly/711jmz
Terry McDonald
December 31, 2009 at 6:42 am
Too early to say, but reading Too Big To Fail, by Andrew Sorkin, there were many who understood it theoretically could fail rapidly- one was Timothy Geithner, who wrote and talked about it way back in 2006, but was mostly ignored. Most seemed to be blinded by the huge quarterly profits.
There is tons of new reporting (new to me) in this book, and it is reading like a a great mystery novel. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Wait, you already know the ending…
Mike
December 31, 2009 at 6:57 am
Terry, I just finished “The Sellout”, by CNBC on-air editor Charlie Gasparino. It was a great read. He starts out back in the 1970’s to build some foundation about how wall street, and more specifically, investment banking works. He then breaks down the entire crisis, including in depth analysis on AIG, Commercial and Investment banks, as well as all of the step by step government intervention. He does a lot finger pointing as well. As a layman on the subject, it was hardly over my head at all, but I’m sure the well informed would still find it interesting. I’ll have to pick up, “Too Big…” as well.
Terry McDonald
December 31, 2009 at 8:20 am
Too Big To Fail starts on the weekend of September 15, 2008, as the failure of Lehman looks imminent. It goes back where needed… to March and the fall of Bear Stearns.
It looks at all the players, the bankers, the Treasury and the Fed. I’m an informed novice as well, taking it all in…
Bob Wilson
December 31, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Goldman Sachs sold CDOs to investors, then shorted them, betting that they would fail. GS profited on both ends.