>>To be sure, most of A.I.G. operated the way it always had, like a normal, regulated insurance company. (Its insurance divisions remain profitable today.) But one division, its “financial practices” unit in London, was filled with go-go financial wizards who devised new and clever ways of taking advantage of Wall Street’s insatiable appetite for mortgage-backed securities. Unlike many of the Wall Street investment banks, A.I.G. didn’t specialize in pooling subprime mortgages into securities. Instead, it sold credit-default swaps.<<
John -
If Mr. Nocera's facts are accurate, which from what I've read elsewhere they are, then it wasn't the Ivy League Liberals who ran AIG that created the problem for the company. It was the Oxford or Cambridge Educated Liberals in London. At least, I would assume that it's safe to assume that's true, since according to one of the posters on this thread, evil deeds must, by default, be ascribed to liberals.
It's nice to know that the actual Ivy League Liberals, who were running AIG's insurance business, were running it will.
The hubris and foolhardiness of those financial guys is astonishing, though.
- Allen |
