It is going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money. While I think the losses on AIG will be rather minor in the grand scheme of things, if you add up Fannie and Freddie and a new RTC, coupled with the stimulus package, you can easily get to $500 billion, and that is probably a low number. For such a price, we had better get a new regulatory scheme which requires reduced leverage. Want to get really mad? Up until 2003, all investment banks were allowed only 12 to 1 leverage. Then in 2004, the SEC basically gave five banks (and only five banks) the ability to lever up 30 or even 40 to 1. Bet you can guess the five banks. Bear, Lehman, Merrill, Morgan and Goldman. Three down.
Hmmm.
2 comments:
I remember reading this too. Turns out that Cox was NOT the head of the SEC at that time.
Attached article -
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1843519,00.html
~Sid
Sid, I couldn't get to the link, but I looked it up, and you're right. Cox was not the head at that time. Thanks for pointing that out!
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