AIG Tries to Bury (the latest) Bad News Anyone reading the *Sunday papers is likely to notice the blaring headlines: AIG senior executives are being paid millions in bonuses. That, notwithstanding the almost $200 billion of taxpayer money already injected into the company. What’s interesting, though, is how the news first broke online, then changed...Read More
Look Who’s Cashing in on the Mortgage Mess Fairly or not, Countrywide Financial and its top executives would be on most lists of those who share blame for the nation’s economic crisis. After all, the banking behemoth made risky loans to tens of thousands of Americans, helping set off a chain of events that has...Read More
Is it Too Late to Bail Out Enron?? [Note to Readers: I originally published the following post in mid-December. At that time, the cumulative federal bailout bill was about $2 trillion. Including guarantees of dubious bank assets, that number now is closer to $4 trillion — $173 billion of which has been pumped into just...Read More
“It’s a Wonderful (Corporate) Life” . . . Not Banks have never made money in the history of banking, losing the equivalent of all their past profits periodically. –Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “How Bank Bonuses Let Us All Down” (2/24/09)G.M. has become a giant wealth-destruction machine ” possibly the biggest in history. –Thomas Friedman, “Start Up...Read More
