How the Fed Bungled AIG's Rescue, Enriched Bankers and Screwed Taxpayers

Source: Business Insider

It is by now well known that the banks on the other side of credit default swaps sold by AIG got paid out at par when the government bailed out the insurance giant.

But what isn't as well known is that by deciding to pay AIG's counter-party in full, the Federal Reserve was reversing months of work AIG executives had done to convince the banks to take a haircut on their positions.

In the months leading up to the bailout of AIG, the chief financial officer for AIG's financial products unit worked day and night and through the weekends to work out a deal with the banks that had purchased $61 billion of credit default swaps from AIG. AIG was trying to get the banks to accept as little as 40 cents on the dollar to retire the swaps.

But when the New York Fed stepped in on September 16, 2008,with an $85 billion credit line for the company, those negotiations ground to a halt. Beginning early in November, a team lead by Tim Geithner at the New York Fed took over negotiations with the banks. Geithner’s team offered the banks 100 cents on the dollar. LinkHere