The directors of insurance giant AIG plan to meet Wednesday to consider joining a lawsuit against the US government, arguing that federal officials imposed unfair terms on the company while rescuing it from collapse during the financial crisis.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
New Definition of Chutzpah
The traditional example of chutzpah is the kid who murders his parents, then begs the judge for mercy because he's an orphan. Here's the new example, from the January 8, 2013 Christian Science Monitor:
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Haven't read more than the headlines about this, but I have followed the AIG mess for a long time and the government has its fingerprints all over it.
ReplyDeleteFirst is NY State AG Eliot Spitzer, who as I recall never got a big white collar conviction, chopping of the head of AIG by going after its founder with a rusty knife in 2005. It's entirely possible the breakdown in risk management stems from that.
Then there's the suspicion that the government's takeover was used to funnel money to the usual suspects, who did need it.
Countering that are the rumors that way too much of the insurance money was invested in bad instruments.
There may be no good guys in this mess beside Greenberg and his people (probably irrelevant since they've long been out of the picture) but we're pretty sure the government, state and Federal, have been bad guys.