delbmarcs

What Obama Needs to Know about Tim Geithner, the AIG Fiasco and Citigroup

Let's see if I understand what is being said (which I doubt).

1. AIG and the like sold agreements to cover defaults on packaged loans that were fairly risky (e.g., mortgages to people who couldn't afford them and others to those who could if they wanted to if their houses were worth more than they paid).
2. AIG and the like took money for these agreements and paid it to themselves, but they had little or no money to pay if defaults occurred (and probably could not, as these were uncoverable bets). The government did not regulate this.
3. The insurance they sold for the loan defaults was a few trillion.
4. A lot more "smart" bets that default would occur were made by speculators worth many more trillions that AIG-like entities also happily sold for the short term gain. The government didn't regulate this. This is the real problem.
5. AIG-like entities lived high on the hog.
6. Like every other market in the history of the world, housing prices peaked and started down, causing minor defaults on mortgages for the worst credit risk people.
7a. The lack of money to cover these defaults caused various financial entities to demand money from AIG-like entities who said "tough toenails" and retired to the Bahamas. Bankers and others who owned the bad loan packages realized they were stuck with their stupid mistakes and resulting losses.
7b. Concern over these losses caused bankers to stop lending as much as before.
8. More underlying mortgages became in question as the economy contracted.
9. An almost exponentially increasing amount of defaults became possible as the world economy slowed and then contracted, throwing more loans into defaults. In fact, perhaps the defaults were already this big as the high amount of naked bets came into play once the price of houses stopped rising.
10. Governments responded with the creation of an almost unending amount of rescue money to cover all the bets, those on underlying assets and those not.
11. The solution proposed by this article is to make CDO and CDS that are not on underlying loans essentially null and void.
12. The damage to real bond holders could be made whole at a much lower price than paying off speculators (or "investors" as the financial system calls us - because we are the enemy, chasing gains).

Is this what the article says? And if so, isn't this what should be done? And won't it essentially be survivable if it is done intelligently?

What Obama Needs to Know about Tim Geithner, the AIG Fiasco and Citigroup

Yes, xsduddensam, you seem to state the common sense feeling well - how can we divorce ourselves of these insiders and their all too natural tendency to do what protects their reputations, fortunes, and freedom from incarceration? What happened to Volcker? Who out there who knows the system can we trust?


On Nov 26 08:48 AM xsuddensam wrote:

> The absurdity of the bailouts is that the very people who are directly
> or indirectly responsible for the CDS Ponzi scheme, as well as those
> politicians entrusted to be our watchdogs, are the ones trying to
> solve the crisis.
>
> Common sense tells us that we are paying for a very expensive "Hail
> Mary" pass to save the reputations of the incompetent political hacks
> as well as the pocketbooks of the Wall Street crooks that robbed
> us in the first place.
>
> It's obvious this will not work and they are just buying time at
> our expense. Unfortunately, where there is so much money involved,
> there will be more fraud and there will be those who will handsomely
> profit from our misfortune

What Obama Needs to Know about Tim Geithner, the AIG Fiasco and Citigroup

Is there another side to this? Are the current Federal policy choices meant to stabilize the system enough to avoid paying off the CDO or CDS or whatever they are because there won't be an underlying default? Is that behind the Federal strategy? What you are saying seems too simple and obvious - "let the Ponzi schemers eat it" - but there must be another side to the story. I suspect you are right, but want more info so I can understand the choices. Thanks.

What Obama Needs to Know about Tim Geithner, the AIG Fiasco and Citigroup

Thanks for helping me understand what's at the bottom of this - not mortgages, but another financial ponzi scheme. I am putting your blog in my "favorites." Do you have advice about how to temper people's individual greed in our current system so we don't keep repeating these financial pyramids decade after decade?