Was the AIG Bailout Needed?

I have repeatedly said that human error was instrumental in the financial meltdown of 2008/2009.

There has been finger-pointing, usually by left-leaning, anti-business politicians and by bureaucrats whose immediate impulse is to blame big business and bankers; the litany of criminalization in left-wing lexicon.

I have always blamed human error. Whether loose monetary policy of the Federal Reserve’s inflating currency, or inappropriate mark-to-market accounting rules for bank securities evaluation.

In the case of AIG, the value of its derivative insurance coverage was also being determined on the basis of fictitious existing market value; not on possible claims in the future, at the maturing of company obligations, but at supposed current valuations.

That produced a condition that induced panic-laden premature bankruptcy; a rush to judgment when cool heads ought to have been the hallmarks of expertise.

Another incidence of rescuers acting in the AIG panic was evidenced by the paying of debts on the basis of 100 cents on the dollar to some bankers in this country and abroad. Especially after the government unfortunately decided to take over 79.9% of the business in its panic-driven haste. 

 

Would not a government guarantee have sufficed, instead of all this taxpayer outlay? (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments.)