12. “High cost of housing … is being masked by extraordinarily low interest rates. An uptick in interest rates … could ‘cause the housing market to tip over.’”
13.
14. Part III: May 29, 2008 “…capped a helter-skelter week — and presaged another 10 days of chaos. Interviews with more than two dozen executives and others directly involved show that Bear Stearns nearly died not once, but twice.” “Bear Stearns Chief Financial Officer Samuel Molinaro Jr. — tired and in the same suit he’d left home in 36 hours before…” “If there were hazards, moral and otherwise, luring in the deal, the future would have to sort them out.” Conclusions: May 30, 2008 “Bear Stearns Cos., a powerhouse on Wall Street for nearly nine decades, ceased to exist Thursday in a meeting that lasted 11 minutes.” “In doing so, they sealed a deal made in haste two months ago amid one of the most terrifying bank runs in history.”
34. “From mid-September to the end of last year, AIG and the government paid $5.4 billion to Deutsche and $8.1 billion to Goldman under credit default swap contracts the insurer had written.”
35.
36. December 12th, 2009 “The trades yielded Goldman less than $50 million in profits, which were mostly booked from 2004 to 2006, according to a person familiar with the matter. But they piled risks onto AIG's books, which later came to haunt the insurer and Goldman. The trades also gave Goldman a unique window into AIG's exposure to losses on securities linked to mortgages. When the federal government bailed out the insurer, Goldman avoided losses on its trades with AIG covering a total of $22 billion in assets.” “Goldman charged more than AIG for the protection, so it was able to pocket the difference, making millions while moving the default risks to AIG” “Goldman officials said the company believed it would have been fully protected had AIG been allowed to fail because of collateral it had amassed and the additional insurance it had bought against an AIG default. The auditor, however, questioned that conclusion. The report said Goldman would have had a difficult time selling the collateral and that the firm might have been unable to actually collect on the additional insurance.”
37.
38. Gives a list of lessons learned from the crisis using hindsight that can be used to avoid a future crisis
All of these items could have and would be discussed in depth further in separate articles to come in the future. They did a good job of mentioning the important issues and trying not to skew things, however more attention could have been paid to how they got into this mess in the first place with the financial products division, leverage, and CDS.
In the months after, questions would rise through congress regarding where the bailout money came from, when taxpayers are being paid back, and where the money went to. In March 2009, developments surrounding the bets of AIG entered the media.Discussion of payouts to banks begins, but is not discussed, or explained very clearly, especially when it comes to determining why the government paid the banks. Goldman claims they were hedged, but this has not been discussed.This needed to be investigated more.Because it was so widespread, filtered, and complicated, it took a lot of time to sort through where the money that went to AIG actually went. This, the bailout, financial regulation (such as hedge funds and short selling) and revelations on corporate spending and compensation lingered for the next year. You can go numerous routes here – but this is one area that should have been discussed more.
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