AIG

[limey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

The money that showed up as lost in the last quarter, was actually lost a year or more ago.

The reason they are propping AIG up is that if it goes down the loses they will continue to report would transfer to dozens, maybe hundreds of institutions and many of them would go down.

The total loss numbers won't change whether it's one or a bunch of institutions, but public perception which is important to recovery, is less damaged with a smaller number of failures.

What he said. I'm guessing hundreds of institutions, the world over, collapse of which would cause serious social instability (to put it mildly).