Posted on 03/04/2009 7:00:46 AM PST by marshmallow
Yesterday was something of a trifecta for A.I.G.: the company announced a quarterly loss of $61.7 billion; the government said it would pony up another $30 billion for the company as well as ease the terms of its deal with A.I.G.; and the former A.I.G. chief executive Maurice “Hank” Greenberg announced he is suing his old company for securities fraud.
According to a Reuters’ report, Greenberg is accusing A.I.G. of “overstating its financial health and masking losses on credit default swaps that hedged default risk for at least $527 billion of debt.” Which “caused him to acquire shares as part of various deferred compensation plans at an inflated price” of $54.37 a share. As of midday today a share of A.I.G. is going for roughly 45 cents. Are you feeling sorry for him yet?
Ben Bernanke isn’t. In Congressional testimony today Bernanke said that no other incident during the crisis had made him “more angry” than the A.I.G. bailout. The company “made huge numbers of irresponsible bets, took huge losses, there was no regulatory oversight because there was a gap in the system,” Bernanke said.
Want another word for “irresponsible bets?” At Time, Justin Fox offers “scam”:
AIG got into the business of insuring much of the world’s financial system against the consequences of a global financial meltdown. It turned out to be incapable of delivering on that insurance — no private company could deliver on it, which is one reason why AIG’s business of selling credit default swaps was a scam. And so government has stepped in as the ultimate insurer.
The whole idea of the insurance industry is that if I buy insurance from you, you pay off the claims. Absent ability to pay claims, there’s no business .....
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Greenberg should marched up the steps of the guillotine first. He was happy with the money coming in on the premiums from AIG Financial wasn’t he?
...with a pocket full of shells...
Funny how we might be a little better off in that department than these pathetic anarchist nuckleheads...
When the day comes, those folks are going to be a little surprised how unprepared they are...
It always amazes me how anarchists and liberal nitwits are so eager to disarm everyone.
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