A comment unlikely to be approved

I just read an interesting article over on the New York Times about A.I.G. It explains what happened quite well...but I wanted to express it in slightly more graphic terms.

Propping Up a House of Cards

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Let me see if I've got this right. In simple (and earthy) terms, A.I.G. used its golden reputation - its rating - to gild turds for other entities. Those entities then traded those turds back and forth as if they were solid gold. And in the end, somehow A.I.G. was stupid enough to buy many of those turds itself!

But it's we, the American taxpayers, who are now left to clean out the sewer. Meanwhile, AIG management and most of the rest of the financial community, the self-professed "elite" who raked in billions or trillions over the past 30-odd years, won't even deign to apologize to the American people.

And why, exactly, are we NOT hanging these people (and the politicians and regulators who were supposed to exercise oversight) from lampposts?

A comment unlikely to be approved

I just read an interesting article over on the New York Times about A.I.G. It explains what happened quite well...but I wanted to express it in slightly more graphic terms.

Propping Up a House of Cards

---

Let me see if I've got this right. In simple (and earthy) terms, A.I.G. used its golden reputation - its rating - to gild turds for other entities. Those entities then traded those turds back and forth as if they were solid gold. And in the end, somehow A.I.G. was stupid enough to buy many of those turds itself!

But it's we, the American taxpayers, who are now left to clean out the sewer. Meanwhile, AIG management and most of the rest of the financial community, the self-professed "elite" who raked in billions or trillions over the past 30-odd years, won't even deign to apologize to the American people.

And why, exactly, are we NOT hanging these people (and the politicians and regulators who were supposed to exercise oversight) from lampposts?