McClatchy

  • <WishList> - A McClatchy analysis of the finances of 20 of AIG’s larger insurance subsidiaries at the time has found a much bleaker picture, however:
    • 2010 0609 - therealnews.com - Did Bush Officials Hide Depths of AIG Problems?, by Greg Gordon - [link]
  • 2010 0610 - COP - Report - The AIG Rescue, Its Impact on Markets, and the Government’s Exit Strategy - 337p
    • (p296) - 969 See Greg Gordon, To justify AIG's bailout, regulators overlooked its colossal problems, McClatchy Newspapers (June 8, 2010) (online at www.kansascity.com/2010/06/08/v-print/2002541/to-justify-aigs-bailoutregulators.html).
  • 2010 0609 - McClatchy - AIG's problems far greater than Bush officials told public, Greg Gordon - [link]
    • A central question is how much U.S. officials knew about the company's problems when they decided to bail it out.
      • Thomas Baxter, the general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, acknowledged in phone interviews that the Fed's understanding of the insurer's financial condition "changed over time as we got to know AIG and its problems."
      • "That led us to come up with different solutions as we learned . . . that its problems were both liquidity (a cash squeeze) and capital (insufficient assets)," he said.
    • Robert Eisenbeis, a former research director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said that the AIG bailout "was painted as a liquidity problem, and it was a solvency problem. And it's still a solvency issue."
  • nakedcapitalism.com/2010/06/links-61010.html

    • Hugh
      June 10, 2010 at 3:36 pm
      It’s really funny in a black humor sort of way this idea that if they shuffle the shit at AIG around enough somehow it will all turn to gold and the taxpayer will be left holding a golden goblet instead of a shit sandwich. The McClatchy article fills out a point I have tried to make that it was not just Cassano’s AIGFP that was rotten but AIG’s regular insurance companies as well. Cooking the books has become accepted practice and that is the only way AIG comes out looking halfway solvent or the line can be sold that AIG will pay back taxpayers.

      What I wonder though is that if AIG’s regular insurance companies were gambling how widespread was this in the insurance industry? How many other losses are being covered up by creative bookkeeping?