Wait. The federal government ultimately made a $22.7 billion profit on bailing out A.I.G.?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Wouldn’t trust that the government accounting on that profit figure as correct. However, if it is, it demonstrates that the bailout guys and their colluders at the banks and investment banks knew exactly what vault retained a pipeline with gold continuing to flow into it and therefore, seized it.
The Street and the FED have been laughing at Greenberg’s suit for the past few years. Of late, they’ve been getting a bit nervous. Greenberg’s claim that those CDS’ should never have paid out at 100 cents on the dollar has substantial validity.
Greenberg’s treading in some of the same waters that MBIA did.
Bloomberg 5/16/13 MBIA Settles 5-Year Mortgage Fight With Bank of America. $1.7 billion settlement.
Greenberg has a reputation for being ruthless. Can up a bit short a decade ago; so, he may be more tenacious on this lawsuit than others expected.
Just for fun — on 2/6/13 MBIA’s stock price closed at $10.14 and on 5/16/13 it closed at $15.27.
I was wondering why Sunday Talk decided to focus on whether or not Jeb will run, nothing else noteworthy to cover – saw while in a waiting area, luckily no audio. truly amazing how they set Obama and McCain side by side as if McCain didn’t lose what, 6 years ago.
The media’s been treating McCain as co-president ever since Obama’s first inauguration.
Yes, I guess it’s presidenting while Black and the msm’s new calling as disinformation source, but still I was shocked. Candy Crowley also, and McCain giving responses as if he had some standing or something on which to criticize our president.
A permanent seat on the Sunday talkies is the consolation prize for the generation that never produced a POTUS.
Interesting numbers and dates. This is all Bush administration maneuvering. The suit is for $25 billion. Leaves the government with a $2.3 billion loss if judgement goes to the plaintiff. It also means that the bailout era for too-big-to-fail banks is over.
The best thing it can do is smoke out the historical emails about that now long ago period. That would permit seeing how Goldman Sachs (proxy is GOP) and Citibank (proxy are Dems) were maneuvering in their own interests in the midst of this banking crisis. With JP Morgan Chase at that point without a known political proxy (that would change quickly after Geithner became Treasury Secretary.
While the big boys are arguing over the settlement, there are still millions homeless from the collapse. And foreclosures still richocheting from the crisis. And gobs of bad titles for the slice-and-dice sales machine.
And yet another monstrous crime gone unpunished. Because wealth.
HUD’s PIT estimate for Jan 2014 was actually about 600k on any given night. So maybe not quite so bad.
Homeless that is.
in me finds the reporting based on plaintiff’s documents and argument rather amazing in their inability to understand the legal process.
A complaint has been filed with damages requested.
Nothing more.
What is more interesting is how much the Fed is sitting on in gains or losses in the MBS they purchased as part of QE. That number may dwarf the AIG bailout.
11/9/14 LATimes Maurice Greenberg puts U.S. handling of AIG bailout on trial
Forcing the release of that treasure trove of government (defendant’s) e-mails and getting all those “A-list officials” on the witness stand is more than any other lawsuit or reporter has managed to accomplish. Note David Boies is on Greenberg’s legal team and Gov’t to Rest Case Friday Without Calling Greenberg in AIG Bailout Trial
The decision is expected early in 2015.
to the press by defense counsel.
Boies is best known for losing Bush v. Gore. He is a hell of a lawyer, but this is all just plaintiff allegations.
Which is it: “All fed to the press by defense counsel” or “this is all just plaintiff allegations?” Can’t be both.
Boies was a poor choice for Bush v. Gore. Complex cases with lots of lead time and long trials are his forte.
You do understand that the trial was completed last month don’t you? So, it’s now a fact and not an allegation that the defense didn’t call Greenberg.
What I’ve found interesting about this lawsuit over the years is the unanimity amount USG officials, Wall St., MSM, and most attorneys that it is a joke and without merit. They seem stunned that it ever made its way to a trial and now are hard pressed to assert that Greenberg is going to lose.
CEPR – Bernie Madoff could have been bailed out with a resultant “profit”, also too.
In addition to that, one could argue that the “opportunity costs” aren’t accounted for. That is, the money given to the banksters could have been spent differently and had much more bang-for-the-buck. So that lost benefit is essentially a cost that we won’t get back either.
So the “profit” in the bailouts isn’t really surprising.
Cheers,
Scott.
The difference between Madoff and AIG is that the former had no real operation. Nothing but liabilities and no assets. AIG had two toxic waste sites — the securities lending division and the AIGFP division. The insurance divisions were in okay shape. It was the mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps that put AIG in a deep hole. That crap was spun out into the “Maiden Lane” vehicles which paid off the corresponding banks at full price. It really was a backdoor TARP funding for those banks. Not to excuse AIG that should never have gotten in bed with the TBTF banks.
That’s about $71 for each of us. When are they sending the checks?
They’re also claiming $15.3 billion profit on TARP. And the $9.2 billion lost on GM bailout amply compensated by at least $39 billion in tax revenues that would not have existed, plus government would have had to pay auto workers pensions.
AFAICT the profit number is the difference between the share prices they took over and the share prices as they’ve sold. Socialism works!