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Dear AIG - I quit.; going after bonuses a mistake
Topic Started: Mar 25 2009, 04:22 AM (1,254 Views)
QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
All debtors, unless they have priority, are thrown in together and share pro rata in whatever company assets are left.

That's why default on a single obligation usually triggers a default on other obligations, too. If a company is going to go bust, everyone wants it to happen as soon as possible, while the most assets are still left.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
ivorythumper
Mar 26 2009, 12:47 PM
What happens to debtor obligations when a company goes bankrupt? Is it like the guy who borrowed $50K from Vito Spatafore knowing he'd probably get whacked and wouldn't have to pay him back?
Exactly. :lol2:

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1hp
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Fulla-Carp

Quote:
 
Maybe the point is that financial types should be compensated like most people, on an hourly or project or even annual salary basis. Percentage of assets under management leads to distorted outcomes.


Yes, that was what I was trying to say.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................
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apple
one of the angels
handling money does not give one license to keep it.

i would have hoped AIG would concern itself with keeping the value of it's insurance policies viable.

"i'm sorry - we paid our big dogs their contract money with the gov bailout - the money you've invested is gone..

gone


spent

nadda
it behooves me to behold
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
QuirtEvans
Mar 26 2009, 01:09 PM
All debtors, unless they have priority, are thrown in together and share pro rata in whatever company assets are left.

That's why default on a single obligation usually triggers a default on other obligations, too. If a company is going to go bust, everyone wants it to happen as soon as possible, while the most assets are still left.
Aren't those the creditors?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
ivorythumper
Mar 26 2009, 01:52 PM
QuirtEvans
Mar 26 2009, 01:09 PM
All debtors, unless they have priority, are thrown in together and share pro rata in whatever company assets are left.

That's why default on a single obligation usually triggers a default on other obligations, too. If a company is going to go bust, everyone wants it to happen as soon as possible, while the most assets are still left.
Aren't those the creditors?
You are absolutely right. My mistake.

I have to stop trying to post technical stuff when I'm doing something else.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
QuirtEvans
Mar 26 2009, 12:43 PM
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What was the point of the bailouts? To help these banks and organizations have the assets necessary to meet their debt's, stay in business, and have the werewithal to continue lending.


Wrong.

The point of the bailouts was absolutely not that.

The point of the bailouts was to prevent the entire financial system from collapsing in a cascade, as one failure caused another to fail, and so on.

If the damage could have been contained within a single institution, or within a discrete group of institutions, those institutions should have and would have been allowed to go under, a la Lehman.

The problem is that the financial system is an interconnected web, and the failure of any one large participant can cause the failure of others, and so on.

Simply because they built debt equity instruments that pyramidded atop one another. In plain English, a house of cards. I can certainly entertain the logic that we cannot allow that house of cards to fall but when taxpayer funds are involved with Congress disbursing these funds then the socialization of loss is inevitable. I would like to see intelligent regulatory proposals to address this but so far I have seen nothing of the sort.
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OperaTenor
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Luke's Dad
Mar 26 2009, 12:30 PM
OperaTenor
Mar 26 2009, 09:41 AM
George K
Mar 26 2009, 08:42 AM
OperaTenor
Mar 26 2009, 08:38 AM
I didn't know Soros received any bailout money.

AFAIK, he didn't. But the point is that it's a large profit, made on OPM. He claims he wants to be regulated.

At what percentage? 90%? 50%? 25? How much is too much enough?
But the point of the 90% tax(which I think is stupid) was to recover bailout money paid out as bonuses, not to tax profit.



No, the purpose of the tax was political posturing.
Yes, the proposed tax was political posturing. But, did it tax profit, or did it tax bonuses paid at institutions that received bailout money?



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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
JBryan
Mar 26 2009, 03:47 PM
QuirtEvans
Mar 26 2009, 12:43 PM
Quote:
 
What was the point of the bailouts? To help these banks and organizations have the assets necessary to meet their debt's, stay in business, and have the werewithal to continue lending.


Wrong.

The point of the bailouts was absolutely not that.

The point of the bailouts was to prevent the entire financial system from collapsing in a cascade, as one failure caused another to fail, and so on.

If the damage could have been contained within a single institution, or within a discrete group of institutions, those institutions should have and would have been allowed to go under, a la Lehman.

The problem is that the financial system is an interconnected web, and the failure of any one large participant can cause the failure of others, and so on.

Simply because they built debt equity instruments that pyramidded atop one another. In plain English, a house of cards. I can certainly entertain the logic that we cannot allow that house of cards to fall but when taxpayer funds are involved with Congress disbursing these funds then the socialization of loss is inevitable. I would like to see intelligent regulatory proposals to address this but so far I have seen nothing of the sort.
It wasn't so much that as it was the leverage, and the over-exposure of other institutions to AIG. Jeffrey has called AIG the Death Star, and he's right.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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George K
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Finally
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Quote:
 
Kathy asked in another thread I think, what I thought about the expression “too big to fail.” I think it’s perhaps the silliest expression I’ve ever heard. If history and physics tell us anything, it’s the guaranteed failure of all things, including companies, countries, people, and entire civilizations. (Packard? The USSR? George Burns? Rome?) No one and nothing is too big to fail. How dare we forget something so basic?

We are obsessed with the consequences of a world without AIG. We are scared to let them fail. Why aren’t we just as scared to keep them around? Why aren’t we more scared?


Wow, he's absolutely right. We should stop worrying about things that could fail, and the human consequences that would result. Everything fails. Dams fail. Nuclear power plants fail. Buildings fail. Airplanes fail. Electrical grids fail. Bridges fail. We should just stop worrying about things that fail and get on with our lives.

:doh:

The point is, we are always fighting against entropy. We are always staving off failure. That's what human beings do. That's what you do, every day, in the operating room. Do you ever hear surgeons saying, when someone is dying on the operating table, why aren't we more scared to keep them around? After all, it's going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time and effort. Best just to move on.

Anybody who could write something so utterly foolish doesn't even deserve to get linked, George.

It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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George K
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Finally
QuirtEvans
Mar 27 2009, 05:48 AM
Do you ever hear surgeons saying, when someone is dying on the operating table, why aren't we more scared to keep them around? After all, it's going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time and effort. Best just to move on.
As a matter of fact, yes, I do. It's rare, but it happens. The disease is too advanced to operate on, and he will just be sicker if we continue. He'll survive, for about 24 hours if we proceed.

We call it "suitcase" surgery - open and close, and it has nothing to do with money, but everything to do with patient comfort - long term.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Somehow, I don't think people are advocating that we should have let AIG die for AIG's comfort.

What you're talking about is an issue where no amount of intervention could make a difference. They're going to die. All you can do is prolong the agony.

AIG, on the other hand, was saveable. It took massive amounts of money and time and effort, but it was saveable.

The real issue is whether the intervention avoids other unpleasant consequences. As you said, it has everything to do with patient comfort ... long term. In the AIG mess, we're trying to avoid other unpleasant consequences.

And the larger point is, we as a species are always trying to stave off failure and reduce unfavorable consequences. It's what we do. To say that "nothing is too big to fail" is both true and absolutely silly. Of course nothing is too big to fail. The sun could fail. If it did, we as a species would not continue, but it's not too big to fail. Just because anything can fail doesn't mean we don't try to avoid the failures, especially when they will have large unfavorable consequences.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
QuirtEvans
Mar 27 2009, 06:13 AM
The real issue is whether the intervention avoids other unpleasant consequences. As you said, it has everything to do with patient comfort ... long term. In the AIG mess, we're trying to avoid other unpleasant consequences.

I think Rowe's point is that labelling AIG as being "too big to fail" stifles objective assessment of the alternatives. Most economists feel AIG can't be allowed to go belly-up, but I wish there were better analyses of the actual outcome if AIG did fail rather than the usual glib "AIG is so interconnected the world economy would collapse". I also wish there were more non-ideologic reports on the long-term downside (if any) of supporting it (and Citi and BAC) as we're doing.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Red Rice
Mar 27 2009, 06:50 AM
QuirtEvans
Mar 27 2009, 06:13 AM
The real issue is whether the intervention avoids other unpleasant consequences. As you said, it has everything to do with patient comfort ... long term. In the AIG mess, we're trying to avoid other unpleasant consequences.

I think Rowe's point is that labelling AIG as being "too big to fail" stifles objective assessment of the alternatives. Most economists feel AIG can't be allowed to go belly-up, but I wish there were better analyses of the actual outcome if AIG did fail rather than the usual glib "AIG is so interconnected the world economy would collapse". I also wish there were more non-ideologic reports on the long-term downside (if any) of supporting it (and Citi and BAC) as we're doing.
The problem is, no one knows exactly what would happen. To know, you'd have to know the precise financial consequences of every one of AIG's positions, and then the same for every one of their counterparties, and so on. That level of detail and knowledge doesn't exist, anywhere.

It's one of those things that require a huge amount of extrapolation and guesswork. But, just because you don't know the answer with precision doesn't mean you should throw your hands up in the air and say, "Whatever happens, happens."
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
QuirtEvans
Mar 27 2009, 11:03 AM
But, just because you don't know the answer with precision doesn't mean you should throw your hands up in the air and say, "Whatever happens, happens."
I agree. That would be foolhardy. But I don't think that's what Rowe is saying; he's wondering why we're so afraid of trying to find out what will in fact happen. Maybe it is unknowable, but I would hope that someone is trying to understand it, as well as trying to untangle how we got into this mess in the first place, rather than throwing money at it and hoping it will go away.

Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Red Rice
Mar 27 2009, 11:09 AM
QuirtEvans
Mar 27 2009, 11:03 AM
But, just because you don't know the answer with precision doesn't mean you should throw your hands up in the air and say, "Whatever happens, happens."
I agree. That would be foolhardy. But I don't think that's what Rowe is saying; he's wondering why we're so afraid of trying to find out what will in fact happen. Maybe it is unknowable, but I would hope that someone is trying to understand it, as well as trying to untangle how we got into this mess in the first place, rather than throwing money at it and hoping it will go away.

I agree with that. The point is that, somewhere in the bowels of Treasury (and the Fed, and other places, too), that's probably happening.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Speaking of bail-outs, no one bailed out the airlines that went out of business after 9/11. I'll bet there are some seriously bitter airline execs out there... Probably lots of people pissed-off about their frequent-flyer miles, too.
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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