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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (461011)	3/4/2009 11:53:08 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576160

But, we do know with a high degree of confidence that just about every bank of any size in the world has significant exposure. Either to the packaged securities or to the CDS's This is a playground for large banks, not medium or small ones. For example, I can think of one that has zero exposure to this that has some 50 branches, many of which are themselves substantial operations. It really depends on the bank's management and portfolio decisions. I've had rock-solid banks call in clients and say, "Hey we're in the real estate loan business, your real estate is prime property, your company is health as an ox, but we don't want the loan". "Why?" "Because we don't." It just depends on the individual bank's management. Sure, the exposure is large for larger banks, but I suspect it is not anywhere near what you've suggested. It is a big problem, no doubt. But we do not know what would have happened had we just said "No, thanks" to AIG.

To: combjelly who wrote (461011)	3/4/2009 12:36:49 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576160

What bothers me about bailing out the CDS "insurance" writers is that some large percentage, maybe even the majority of those instruments were taken out as BETS that the underlying security would fail, NOT to insure the security. I don't like thinking that our tax dollars are paying off casino bets. None of us are allowed to take out life insurance on our neighbor, or fire insurance on his house - it's ILLEGAL. Why do these investors get a pass?

To: combjelly who wrote (461011)	3/4/2009 1:39:09 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576160

I can understand that they want to avoid panic, and the real depth of the problems is probably panic-worthy, but they can't just keep pumping money in without saying where it is going. From what I understand, there is not much left of AIG that isn't zombie like. They continue to sell of pieces but they are having trouble finding buyers. Having said that, I don't think we'll have to put too much more money into it. To give you an idea of how fukked up our free markets have become, the AIG's long time CEO, in place for a couple of decades, was forced out over a year ago as AIG's troubles became known. The sucker was so angry at getting forced out despite his role in the company's troubles, he started buying up stock in order to wage a proxy fight. He was buying when the stock was in the $50s. In fact, he blew much of his fortune buying up the stock at those elevated prices. The stock is now worth around $.50. So what does the dude do but turnaround and sue AIG for not telling the truth about how bad things were at the company. Can you believe such hubris?