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HAHA!!! For some reason I feel better about giving it to Goldman than to SocGen, BNP Paribas, and DB...

Punitive short selling by huge specs on margin to push companies across their debt covenants and into collapse is/should be a crime. In theory, big buyers should emerge to capitalize on the price distortion, but with the size of the players today, buyers never really know how much powder the...

I don't think it would _keep_ prices too high. Make it a one time deal. 1% re-fi's for all homeowners during 2009 and 2010, for example. It stimulates the economy, and interest rates return to normal market based rates after the period expires. The rates may actually be a little lower, since...

I like the analogy, but its' really like someone forcing you under penalty of jail to pay for someone else's cab ride from NYC to LA. The person forcing you to pay for it then suddenly begins feigning tremendous disgust and outrage at the sheer gall of the cab driver to use one $2 toll road, and...

No. I am just pointing out mental hypocrisy. Fullfilling hundreds of billions of dollars worth of "legal contracts" isn't spawning nearly the outrage as fulfilling a much smaller number ($165million) of "legal contracts." Both sets of contracts were entered into foolhardily by one or both...

I still don't understand why people are less mad about sending hundreds of billions to (mostly foreign) banks that were greedy and made bad choices because have "contracts" with AIG (becasue we have to honor the contracts!!) than people are about honoring the contracts made with living, breating...

Of all the folks on here I am the probably the least of a conspiracy theorist, but... AIG has 116,000 employees, according to Google Finance. $165M/116,000 employees = $1400 per employee. That's a pretty pathetic bonus if you ask me (I'm obviously aware that they wouldn't be distributed...

Thanks. That's the piece I was missing...

By borrowing the security from the owner, lending it it to a "shorter" in exchange for a fee and collateral, and then mis-investing the cash generated from that??? So how did AIG's Securities lending division lose money on mortgage backed CDO's???? not like they've been appreciating lately...

Per AP: "The money went to banks to cover their losses on complex mortgage investments, as well as for collateral needed for other transactions." sounds more and more like a euro bank bailout. Initially I thought it was all margin collateral, but I am beginning to doubt it...

Does anyone have further details on this? According to Earth Times : On November 10, 2008, AIG and the FRBNY established Maiden Lane III, a financing entity, to purchase the securities underlying certain CDS contracts from the counterparties to such contracts, allowing the cancellation of...

SIV = special investment vehicle, I am guessing min-super-SIV = ???

here's another decent article narrating the attachment above: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/aig-discloses-counterparties-to-cds-gia-and-securities-lending-transactions,749585.shtml

ok, Maiden Lane III seems to be a Federal reserve entity buying CDO's and CDS's. Maybe someone can find out more. If they're posting collateral cash on open positions, I am cool with it. If they are buying back derivatives (from "financially sophisticated counterparties") at a massive loss at...

wait, what is "Maiden Lane III" ????

I'm down with what you're saying. If we were sending "care package" type money to help the banks I'd be pretty disappointed. It appears actually that they're posting collateral on worsening MtM positions, not giving bank wellfare to euro banks with our tax $. had it turned out to be bank...

My above post aside, if $22B of the funds went to post increased collateral requirements against open positions, what are you going to do? Allow them to default? Who the counterparty is doesn't really make any difference if it's a matter of bailing out the institution. Without the collateral...

really? forced them? I wonder, did those poor, blatantly extorted banks then re-patriate the profits from the boom times to Europe? I guess now I feel better about having my taxes go up so we can send them $$$. Analogously, I think whoever it was that sold me my long fertilizer positions...

^different buckets. that train of thought could be used to say all taxation is always more than fair, since tax $ go to sustain an evironement in which profits can ostensibly be made. The govt backstops that environment, and is therewith fairly entitled to any share it (capriciously) decides.

Here's an article describing how the US Attorney, trustee and IRS are trying to make even more money off of the Madoff affair. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/03/12/f-rfa-macdonald.html Cliffs notes: - US attorney is looking to seize $170B of money and property traceable to the...