[Editor’s note: This comment, posted by Alfred Centauri, deserves a post of its own, so I’m giving it one.]
It’s essentially academic now, IMHO.
Bill, in an earlier post you wrote that the affected AIG employees should all just leave.
Apparently, they feel that way too.
A sense of fear hung in the room — the palpable, unsettling kind that flashes across people’s eyes. But there was anger, too. No one would express it publicly, of course. Who wants to hear a wealthy financier complain? And yet, within those walls off Danbury Road lies a deep sense of betrayal — first by their former colleagues, now by their elected leaders.
The handful of souls who championed the firm’s now-infamous credit-default swaps are, by nearly every account, long since departed. Those left behind to clean up the mess, the majority of whom never lost a dime for AIG, now feel they have been sold out by their Congress and their president.
…
If they did walk out the door, who would volunteer to work at the Chernobyl of the financial world? And what would become of the mammoth portfolio that remains?
“It would become the biggest naked position on Wall Street,” one longtime Financial Products executive said, “and everybody would exploit it.”
…
The Financial Products staff met twice Wednesday inside one of the firm’s large, glass-walled conference rooms to discuss the boss’s letter. Numerous employees indicated that they would be willing to return the money, but most wanted nothing more to do with the firm. It was a preview of the possible exodus to come, one that concerns Liddy himself.
“My fear is that the damage is done,” he told a congressional subcommittee. “That they will return [the money], but that they will return it with their resignations.”
There is little doubt within Financial Products that he’s right about that.
“Nobody is going to give it back and then stay,” said one of the firm’s employees. “If they give back the money, then they will walk. And they will walk into the arms of AIG’s counterparties.”
What a cluster f*ck.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
We shouldn’t even be considering this. The bill the house passed today is completely unconstitutional and cannot be allowed to stand. These are contractual obligations and when the government starts voiding contracts we all need to worry. I can’t see this having any positive impact on the market either. Those guys actually understand the implications of this. Its a sad day in America indeed.
Brilliant AC, and what’s even more frightening about it is the pitch fork and torch carrying mob that is the average American. I am really scared for our future..
When I see a congress critter bleating about this on tv I’m always reminded of Kim du Toit’s line about, tree, rope, some assembly required.
Not my line, actually. It was coined by the Emperor Misha I (aka. the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler).
My line is: “I want to hang all liberals from utility poles, so that laughing Republican children can use their rotting corpses for .22 target practice.”
Not as pithy, but of a more practical bent.
Sanity from the Washington Post Editorial Board:
Those are highlights, read the whole thing.
That statement is soooo 18th Century.
Nonsense. Everything’s going just the way he wants it to.