Transcript!!!
Hank Greenberg and Meredith Whitney, Gretchen Morgenson and Carol Loomis!
Hank Greenberg and Meredith Whitney, Gretchen Morgenson and Carol Loomis!
Bernanke interrupts....
AIG!
Let me start with a personal insight: trading again after ten years (after all the investment advisors screwed up my money, why can't I do the same thing and have fun doing it?) I note that no sooner than my finger is off the mouse with a "market order" to buy GE it is "executed." Not a milisecond wait. Literally!
Suppose I had bought 10 million shares instead of 260 shares? Supposing I made a mistake on that 10 million shares.
In trading "slippage" happens. When it happens with big money, big bad things happen. More later. This may or may not be relevant to what follows.
AIG!
Let's start with the NYT's excellent interview with legal authorities:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/when-bonus-contracts-can-be-broken/
But I came into the kitchen 10 minutes ago because of such a wonderful first 1/2 hour of Charlie Rose just now (an hour delayed),
http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/838
also on AIG.
The discussion was so important that it temporarily changed my view of Hank Greenberg from negative to possibly positive, and introduced me to at least one new hero: Carol Loomis of Fortune.
This Charlie Rose is so important that I am going to take my laptop and do a verbatim while rewatching the 1/2 hour (the other 1/2 hr deals with Pakistan). Then I will put it in below (above).
But first the incomparable Dowd on this topic!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/opinion/18dowd.html?_r=1
From that piece:
"Boiling mad that A.I.G. made more than 73 millionaires in the unit that felled the firm, Cuomo called the company’s counsel on Monday to demand that she stop payment on the checks. Cuomo was informed that the money had already been direct-deposited in the accounts of the derivative scoundrels with the push of a button."
Again:
"...[T]he money had already been direct-deposited in the accounts of the derivative scoundrels with the push of a button."
And Friedman, clumsy and unknowledgeable on financial matters, (he misdescribes credit default instruments of AIG, but so what) still highly relevant on this topic of AIG:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/opinion/18friedman.html
Leonhart chimes in, not so artfully:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/economy/18leonhardt.html
But Ah! Morgenson!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/18aig.html?ref=economy
"Even though A.I.G. finally disclosed the names of the institutions that received so much of the government money that was thought to be going to A.I.G., the idea that it took six months still rankles some market participants."
“'The system was undermined by asking the American people, under the veil of secrecy, to bail out one company when in fact they wanted to bail out someone else,'” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an authority in structured finance and a founder of R & R Consulting, a firm that helps investors gauge debt risks. “The prospectus for the bailout was not delivered to the people. And it was not delivered because if it had been, the deal would not have gone through.”
Let me start with a personal insight: trading again after ten years (after all the investment advisors screwed up my money, why can't I do the same thing and have fun doing it?) I note that no sooner than my finger is off the mouse with a "market order" to buy GE it is "executed." Not a milisecond wait. Literally!
Suppose I had bought 10 million shares instead of 260 shares? Supposing I made a mistake on that 10 million shares.
In trading "slippage" happens. When it happens with big money, big bad things happen. More later. This may or may not be relevant to what follows.
AIG!
Let's start with the NYT's excellent interview with legal authorities:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/when-bonus-contracts-can-be-broken/
But I came into the kitchen 10 minutes ago because of such a wonderful first 1/2 hour of Charlie Rose just now (an hour delayed),
http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/838
also on AIG.
The discussion was so important that it temporarily changed my view of Hank Greenberg from negative to possibly positive, and introduced me to at least one new hero: Carol Loomis of Fortune.
This Charlie Rose is so important that I am going to take my laptop and do a verbatim while rewatching the 1/2 hour (the other 1/2 hr deals with Pakistan). Then I will put it in below (above).
But first the incomparable Dowd on this topic!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/opinion/18dowd.html?_r=1
From that piece:
"Boiling mad that A.I.G. made more than 73 millionaires in the unit that felled the firm, Cuomo called the company’s counsel on Monday to demand that she stop payment on the checks. Cuomo was informed that the money had already been direct-deposited in the accounts of the derivative scoundrels with the push of a button."
Again:
"...[T]he money had already been direct-deposited in the accounts of the derivative scoundrels with the push of a button."
And Friedman, clumsy and unknowledgeable on financial matters, (he misdescribes credit default instruments of AIG, but so what) still highly relevant on this topic of AIG:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/opinion/18friedman.html
Leonhart chimes in, not so artfully:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/economy/18leonhardt.html
But Ah! Morgenson!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/18aig.html?ref=economy
"Even though A.I.G. finally disclosed the names of the institutions that received so much of the government money that was thought to be going to A.I.G., the idea that it took six months still rankles some market participants."
“'The system was undermined by asking the American people, under the veil of secrecy, to bail out one company when in fact they wanted to bail out someone else,'” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an authority in structured finance and a founder of R & R Consulting, a firm that helps investors gauge debt risks. “The prospectus for the bailout was not delivered to the people. And it was not delivered because if it had been, the deal would not have gone through.”
Now, a partial transcript. I still do not know whether Hank Greenberg is blowing smoke up our asses...but his comments are interesting. "Meredith" is sensational!
(see above)
Now for Liddy's Washington Post Op Ed piece this morning.
And from BlogDredd Blog, we see that it was a Milken team that started AIG's credit default swaps years ago, well before Hank Greenberg left! So he was blowing smoke up our asses last night with Charlie Rose.
