"Wall Street banks and lawyers could collect nearly $1 billion in fees from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and [AIG] to help manage and break apart the insurer, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. ... The government has a plan to recoup the more than $100 billion in taxpayer money it put at risk in the rescue. The plan requires hiring firms to handle public offerings of some AIG units and outright sales of others, to manage some toxic AIG assets, and for other tasks. ... Goldman Sachs Group Inc., [GSG] Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., have all gotten assignments in recent months to help dismantle AIG. ... The situation puts the government in the potentially uncomfortable position of employing some of the same firms it regulates. In theory, actions the government takes in connection with those firms, for example, could affect how effective the firms are at handling their AIG assignments", my emphasis, Liam Pleven and Aaron Lucchetti at the WSJ, 6 August 2009, link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124951576916509361.html.
Can you believe this? After getting $13 billion from the AIG bailout, GSG found some "meat was left on the bones", and is picking at the carcass. Is there a less appropriate firm to work for AIG than GSG? Plan? Here's mine: let the "counterparties" return the $120 billion they got. I'm so generous, I'll even forgo any interest.
1 comment:
Let's be generous IA and just ask for the return of the difference between the haircut value and the paid in full amount of the CDS...
Did Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke think no one would notice? The "these are honorable men" defense that Geithner's been trumpeting around is not sufficient to explain what happened.
The payment to Goldman and other AIG counterparties was stolen from the US Treasury. That is a lot of money to steal in plain sight. A lot of money to steal in plain sight.
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