In U.S. Bailout of A.I.G., Forgiveness for Big Banks

[notesdev]

Source: NY Times

...

Unknown outside of a few Wall Street legal departments, the A.I.G. waiver was released last month by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform amid 250,000 pages of largely undisclosed documents. The documents, reviewed by The New York Times, provide the most comprehensive public record of how the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Treasury Department orchestrated one of the biggest corporate bailouts in history.

The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts. That decision, say critics of the A.I.G. bailout, has cost taxpayers billions of extra dollars in payments to the banks. It also contrasts with the hard line the White House took in 2008 when it forced Chrysler’s lenders to take losses when the government bailed out the auto giant.

...


This month, the Congressional Oversight Panel, a body charged with reviewing the state of financial markets and the regulators that monitor them, published a 337-page report on the A.I.G. bailout. It concluded that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York did not give enough consideration to alternatives before sinking more and more taxpayer money into A.I.G. “It is hard to escape the conclusion that F.R.B.N.Y. was just ‘going through the motions,’ ” the report said.

About $46 billion of the taxpayer money in the A.I.G. bailout was used to pay to mortgage trading partners like Goldman and Société Générale, a French bank, to make good on their claims. The banks are not expected to return any of that money, leading the Congressional Research Service to say in March that much of the taxpayer money ultimately bailed out the banks, not A.I.G.

...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/30aig.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

---

Fire Geithner - now. He belongs in jail not running the Treasury!

[Po_d Mainiac]

1. If you are a big bank you can do what?

You can lie.
You can steal
You can rig bids
You can screw your clients
You can destroy economies

But you cannot be held accountable for your actions!

This is just so fucking wrong

[alp227]

2. My bank Wells Fargo just hooked me up with accident insurance from an AIG subsidiary

National Union Fire Insurance. $17.95/month premium. Did some research, found some people complaining about it being "scam", so I'll cancel it this weekend. The payments only begin in August though because they gave me a "60-day review period".

Nonetheless, this bad news about AIG convinces me never ever to do business with those goons ever.

[Nihil]

3. Surprisingly little response to this ...

> The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their
> own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and
> instead paid the banks in full for the contracts. That decision, say critics
> of the A.I.G. bailout, has cost taxpayers billions of extra dollars in payments
> to the banks. It also contrasts with the hard line the White House took in 2008
> when it forced Chrysler’s lenders to take losses when the government bailed out
> the auto giant.

Oh ... was that the sound of a pin dropping?

[Capt. Jack]

4. The whole thing is totally bogus!

Top to bottom!

Fight back!

http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org/

http://4closurefraud.org/

http://www.livinglies.wordpress.com/

[Romulox]

5. Please forget this story when we get into the upcoming deficit hysteria!

Also, please focus your attention on the measly amounts forwarded to GM, and ignore the tremendous amounts forwarded to Wall Street. Thanks!