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| AIG Lost $670 Million Every Day |
| 2009-03-03 |
| No company has ever lost as much as AIG did last quarter. All told, it lost almost $100 billion last year, with $61.7 billion of those losses in just the last quarter of 2008. Few companies have ever been worth that much, or been able to put anything like that much at risk. It's almost unfathomable. Let's see if we can break it down into a more reasonable number. Every day AIG lost: $670 million. Every hour AIG lost: $27.9 million. Every minute AIG lost: $465 thousand. Every second AIG lost: $7,750. That's more like it. It means that every six and half seconds, AIG loses the equivalent of the median household income in the US. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #14 This puts the cart before the horse. Hardly. There existed regulatory principles before socialism. Those principles where to provide 'integrity' to the system not to exploit the system for social engineering. The socialists move from the amoral natural system of commerce to an agenda based extension of government control and power. In doing so they've driven capital to other markets. It's been the classical model of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-03-03 23:06 |
| #13 Am I glad I'm not insured with these bastards anymore. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-03-03 21:35 |
| #12 Ben Bernanke had this to say in today's testimony before Congress: “A.I.G. exploited a huge gap in the regulatory system.” What he didn't say was that any regulatory system will have huge gaps waiting to be exploited, due to human nature. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-03-03 13:47 |
| #11 Back in the good times, AIG gambled with money they didn't have. Now the US government is forced to back up their bets, or 500 large companies will be out of business. |
| Posted by: Sninemble Jones9960 2009-03-03 13:24 |
| #10 helll buy lottery tickets they would do better than thye are now |
| Posted by: rabid whitetail 2009-03-03 12:49 |
| #9 who in the hell runs this company i would find a hard time losing 670 million a day |
| Posted by: rabid whitetail 2009-03-03 12:48 |
| #8 socialist governments who's policies and regulations drove capital out of their own systems into the hands of the confidence men. This puts the cart before the horse. Governmental regulation of financial transactions has been largely driven by the abuses financiers themselves foisted on the public, e.g., the South Sea Bubble, the Tulip Mania, the Mississippi Company, and the origins of the Securities & Exchange Commission & the Glass-Steagall Acts. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-03-03 12:36 |
| #7 I heard on street talk this morning that if AIG failed it would cause a "run" on the insurance companys. What would a "run" do to people that have life insurance policies with say Kansas City Life? |
| Posted by: bman 2009-03-03 12:32 |
| #6 ...and socialist governments who's policies and regulations drove capital out of their own systems into the hands of the confidence men. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-03-03 11:03 |
| #5 AIG is something of a special case because as one line of business they carved out a niche in offsetting risk for major banks, some of which are in effect national banks of European countries. As we now know, many of those banks in places like Germany used AIG to circumvent national regulations and international agreements regarding capital and other soundness measures. Those banks treated AIG policies as if they were solid assets when they constructed their balance sheets. AIG's not the primary cause, nor is their executive leadership entirely to blame for this fiasco. In reality AIG is the canary in the coal mine re: both national and international banking in many countries. They played a role in constructing the tower of cards that is now collapsing, but a lot of the blame belongs to the bankers who lied, cheated and faked their way to profits. |
| Posted by: lotp 2009-03-03 10:57 |
| #4 From here: A.I.G.'s 11 top executives were allocated $42.4 million in shares under the Starr International plan last year[2004]. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2009-03-03 10:54 |
| #3 It's just another ponzi scheme coming to an end. I suspect many insurers are just legal, slow-motion ponzi schemes. They charge what the market will bear, live lavishly, and then fold when the insured risks become realities. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2009-03-03 10:50 |
| #2 Pretty tough and determined group to still be in business through all of this. I'd love to read their business plan. (snark off) |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-03-03 08:32 |
| #1 Are these "real" losses or are these manipulations of figures that end up as losses on the bottom line? I can see a huge writedown but if they really "lost" that much money, they need to go away. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2009-03-03 01:01 |