Folks....listen up. AIG was and is the major provider of derivitives, over-the-counter derivitives, credit default swaps. They 'secured' bets that companies such as Lehmans, Fannie Mae, Freddie, and thousands of other, mostly banks, mostly American and European. They took these companies money and 'guaranteed' if those companies took loses, they would make them whole. When Lehmans fell on Sept.16 it was the shot heard around the world. Lehmans (too large to fail) was allowed to fail. AIG (too large to fail) was handed $85 billion dollars the same day. They have been back to the trough for the 4th time and will be back again and again and again. If those derivitive claims are not payed the nuclear chain reaction will take down the entire world economies. This is a shit storm we have never seen. This is what Harvard bankers, lawyers, and congressemen have done to you and your childrens futures. It cannot be fixed. It cannot be contained if allowed to unwind. There are no good prospects.
Captain Sunshine signing off for now.
Exploding pension fund shortfalls are blowing billion-dollar holes in the balance sheets of some of the Chicago area's biggest companies, forcing them to make huge contributions to retirement plans at a time when cash flow and credit are already under stress. Boeing Co.'s shareholder equity is now $1.2 billion in the hole thanks to an $8.4-billion gap between its pension assets and the projected cost of its obligations for 2008. At the end of 2007, Boeing had a $4.7-billion pension surplus. If its investments don't turn around, the Chicago-based aerospace giant will have to quadruple annual contributions to its plan to about $2 billion by 2011. Stock market losses also pounded pension funds at Abbott Laboratories Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Exelon Corp., with others sure to emerge as companies file their annual financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission in coming weeks.
