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I think you kind of missed most of the last half of the article. The overbearing asshole is not presented as the villian. AIG FP is not presented as "turning

by RobGR 17y ago

I think you kind of missed most of the last half of the article. The overbearing asshole is not presented as the villian. AIG FP is not presented as "turning a blind eye", in fact they are described as halting much of their sub-prime involvement, if a little late; the article suggestts that if they had unwound the positions they did take before they realized the mortgage bundles were 95% sub-prime instead of 10% as they had been previously, AIG FP might have survived and the big banks would have had bigger loses.

arakyd 17y ago
If not realizing that 95% of your consumer loans (not just 95% of mortgages) are sub-prime mortgages, and then keeping them on the books because of what amounts to a pure gamble on housing prices isn't turning a blind eye to risk, I don't know is. The article points fingers in a lot of directions, but it does spend quite a bit of time on Cassano. Maybe you pick him out if you're going to pick out one guy at AIG, but this was clearly a case of everyone involved carefully ignoring things that might have upset the money flows. In the end there are some winners, and a lot of people left holding the bill (mostly taxpayers). Coincidentally, the winners, by and large, happen to be the ones with the most political influence. See: http://fora.tv/2009/06/01/Michael_Lewis_The_End_of_Wall_Street#Michael_Lewis_Slams_Political_Influence_of_Wall_Street http://fora.tv/2009/06/01/Michael_Lewis_The_End_of_Wall_Stre...