What was once the unthinkable occurred on September 16, 2008. On that date, the federal government gave the American Investment Group - better known as AIG (NYSE:AIG) - a bailout of $85 billion. In exchange, the U.S. government received nearly 80% of the firm's equity. For decades, AIG was the world's biggest insurer, a company known around the world for providing protection for individuals, companies and others. But in September, the company would have gone under if it were not for government assistance. High Flying The epicenter of the near-collapse of AIG was an office in London. A division of the company, entitled AIG Financial Products (AIGFP), nearly led to the downfall of a pillar of American capitalism. For years, the AIGFP division sold insurance against investments gone awry, such as protection against interest rate changes or other unforeseen economic problems. But in the late 1990s, the AIGFP discovered a new way to make money. A new financial tool known as a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) became prevalent among large investment banks and other large institutions. CDOs lump various types of debt - from the very safe to the very risky - into one bundle. The various types of debt are known as tranches. Many large investors holding mortgage-backed securities created CDOs, which included tranches filled with subprime loans. (For more on this concept, check out our Subprime Mortgage Meltdown special feature.) The AIGFP was presented with an option. Why not insure CDOs against default through a financial product known as a credit default swap? The chances of having to pay out on this insurance were highly unlikely, and for a while, the CDO insurance plan was highly successful. In about five years, the... ... middle of paper ... ... And The Federal Reserve_.) Conclusion AIG's bailout has not come without controversy. Some have criticized whether or not it is appropriate for the government to use taxpayer money to purchase a struggling insurance company. In addition, the use of the public funds to pay out bonuses to AIG's officials has only caused its own uproar. However, others have said that, if successful, the bailout will actually benefit taxpayers due to returns on the government's shares of the company's equity. No matter the issue, one thing is clear. AIG's involvement in the financial crisis was important to the world's economy. Whether the government's actions will completely heal the wounds or will merely act as a bandage remedy remains to be seen. To learn more about bailouts such as this one, be sure to read our related article, Top 6 U.S. Government Financial Bailouts.
In 2009, the Obama Administration bailed out the General Motors and Chrysler automobile companies. Having begun their decent into bankruptcy in 2008, losing thousands of jobs, sales plummeting forty percent, with a high threat of liquidation, General Motors and Chrysler finally reached government-assisted chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. Obama allocated eighty five billion dollars in TARP funds to the auto industry, close to fifty billion dollars of it going to General Motors. The allocated funds were successful in keeping two of the Big Three auto companies afloat, keeping taxes from sky rocketing and saving millions of jobs.
...o turn their securities back into AIG and demand billions of dollars. AIG was faced with a problem and they had to start asking subsidiary insurance companies to liquidate their pension and insurance holdings so they could cover their losses. If this happened those customers would have received a fraction of the money due to them and would ensure a global crisis. Of all the people complaining about AIG, Goldman-Sachs was doing it the most frequently and the loudest. An audit of AIG showed that they had no liquidity to pay off the bulk of what they owed so the Federal government issued a bail out of $80 billion which later elevated to $200 billion. Goldman-Sachs received the largest percentage of that $200 billion and would have torched the entire country in order to get that money that felt they deserved; and the housing-market bubble was just at the beginning of it.
But this time would be different. Henry Paulson stepped in to let Lehman Brothers know there would be no bailout for them. Someone had to fail to set an example for the rest of the banking industry and Lehman Brothers would be that someone. In Paulson’s view Lehman Brothers was guilty of moral hazardous decisions and would not be paid for mistakes made. I find it interesting that Richard Fuld the CEO at Lehman Brothers at this time was Paulson’s chief competitor before becoming Treasury Secretary. Why was Lehman Brothers by the way of Paulson’s moral hazard decision making? They were a large bank and posed greater systemic risk to the overall industry than Bear Stearns. Paulson told Fold to make a deal with another bank or risk bankruptcy. When no deal could be made Paulson told the Wall Street banks to solve the problem collectively since they created the problems collectively. With no end in sight Paulson eventually shelved his moral hazard standing and was forced to make loans to the largest banks in America. Two of the largest companies in the world were United States banks and had lost almost 60 percent of their value. United States banks held nearly 5 trillion in mortgages. AIG alone held billions in credit default swaps and would eventually need nearly 185 billion in government loans to remain in business. AIG famously was deemed too big to fail. The government now controlled the largest insurance company along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the largest mortgage banks on
A majority of mortgage defaults that Americans used were on subprime mortgage loans, which were high-interest-rate loans lent to people with high risk credit rates (Brue). Despite knowing the risks, the Federal government encouraged major banks to lend out these loans to buyers, in hopes, of broadening ho...
Not only were millions of Americans been put out of work due to these manager’s actions, the American financial markets themselves were pushed to the brink of collapse. Despite the fact that the global financial markets, in reality, are not perfectly efficient, there is a corrective mechanism built into the day-to-day trading in the market. When prices are driven down by large sells, either by large investors or a movement in a stock, there are usually new buyers for these stocks at the cheaper price. Managers of...
...n Sachs gained from bailout of AIG. [online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jan/27/goldman-sachs-received-aig-bailout-cash [Accessed 28 Apr. 2014].
AIG’s corporate culture played a big role in its downfall. They seemed to be more concerned about their own personal gains in the short run than what the effects were going to be in the long run. The company did very poorly and accumulated billions of dollars in the red, and still many top executives were getting paid in cash bonuses after the bailout. These bonuses amounted to almost 2-3 times their salaries they earned before the bailout. AIG’s focus was on the reward system this placed little responsibility on executives who made poor decisions. This resulted in many believing AIG had neither concern nor acknowledgement to changing their ways. Also, shortly after the bailout AIG spent over $300,000 on a conference held in phoenix at a lavish resort. This did not sit very well with stakeholders. AIG executives and upper management time and time again were showing little change in business practices even after the bailout.
What: authorized $2billion for emergency financing for banks, life insurance companies, railroads, and other large businesses.
After the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association many employees were out a job, and the U.S. was out around three billion dollars.
The years 2008 shined a light on a group of people who were considered high society. When the stock market crashed in September 2008, the world shines a spotlight on the financial corporation. Words such as hedge fund manager and financial instrument such as credit default swaps are not words not known to everyday citizens. The economic downturn forced society to ask question not normally asked.
Investment banks, Rating agencies and Insurance companies are key components of the financial market. In this presentation, I’m going to explain how these three key roles worked together to create the 2008 financial crisis.
...lume basis. At Lehman Brothers, their own risk management department were constantly raising red flags which management overruled in order to seek more revenue. On December 12th 2013, The US Securities and Exchange Commission fined Merrill Lynch just over $130million for making false disclosures over 3 CDOs and holding inaccurate books. The banks believed the CDO machine couldn’t fail; they believed once they have sold on the toxic mortgages, it was no longer their problem. However, once the housing bubble burst, investors began to question the value of MBSs; there was a huge write down in their value, prompting huge losses in the financial sector. The long held myth that house prices do not decrease was found to be catastrophically inaccurate, and with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, The Era of The Great Complacence was well and truly at its end.
Rather than see this auto manufacturing giant fail, the federal government decided to bail them out yet again. This was the second time that GM received government assistance to keep from going under. General Motors was due to receive $30 billion on top of the $20 billion it had already received in a previous
The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.
In my opinion the government spends way too much money (taxpayers money) to make sure that the bigger institutions do not fail and have a huge negative affect on the economy. The way that many people, myself included, think the government should handle this is to break the bigger institutions up into smaller ones that way we can still let the institutions go bankrupt and not have it effect our economy in a big way.