Posted on 04/20/2009 2:51:50 AM PDT by Scanian
SO maybe Eliot Spitzer did kill AIG, after all.
Nobody doubts the in surance giant is basically kaput, or that the promix ate cause is billions in losses in obscure instruments known as credit-default swaps, or CDSs. But American International Group didn't go deadly deep into CDSs until after New York Attorney General Spitzer had forced out Maurice "Hank" Greenberg out as CEO.
GO back to March 2005, just days after Spitzer scored his biggest scalp during his eight-year tenure as the Sheriff of Wall Street by compelling Greenberg's departure. The new CEO, long-time AIG executive Martin Sullivan, held an important meeting.
According to people with direct knowledge of the event, Sullivan summoned the business heads from all of AIG's various divisions. Spitzer, according to people at AIG, had helped to force Greenberg out as CEO (and later as chairman) amid a wide-ranging probe of the firm's accounting practices.
But Sullivan's message wasn't about the past, it was about the future: Greenberg was gone, but AIG would survive -- and thrive. He said that the executives needed to stay focused and move the business forward.
Then he prodded the execs, saying that while doing this, they should also have "some fun."
That last part shocked some in the room -- because it was the last thing that Hank Greenberg, who'd ruled the company with an iron fist for 37 years, would ever say.
It's also probably the last thing you want your CEO to say when he's running a company whose entire business model is based on the tedious task of measuring risk in one form or another.
APPARENTLY, though, the executives took Sullivan's words to heart: AIG kept on earning billions. But a big driver of its post-Greenberg earnings was the then-little-known CDSs --
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The Sheriff of Wall Street,most things go bad from the top down so much fot the S.E.C. keeping an eye on things.
Oh please, AIG did themselves in...tbis company sold fake insurance without reserves...most of the ones who participated in this fiasco should be in jail. I don’t know why they are not in jail.
Some companies need killin’.
If the SEC had been doing it’s job, instead of taking payoffs from the likes of Bernie Madoff, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Somebody has to watch the watchers.
NO! No “somebody” has to watch the watchers — to hold that someone should is among the biggest reasons we got in this mess!
You just invoked a plea for a dictatorial nanny-state. Somebody to watch out for you!
No sir, that never works. People are people. Give them the power over others, as a way of avoiding your own responsibility is a surefire way of giving them the authority to abuse that power and turn it against you.
It is your responsibility, and mine, and everyone else to police a free market. We only ask of government that they set standards of weights and measures, and standards of contract forms and terms, and provide the courts and equitable processes to settle disagreements.
The rest — wise men leave to the market.
company sold fake insurance,S.E.C. did what ?
They were not under SEC control...they evaded even the most minimal regulation by moving to London.
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