From The Market Ticker:
No wonder The Fed was threatening Congress when asked about audits – it might expose the underlying realities of something like this:
European banks including Societe Generale SA and BNP Paribas SA hold almost $200 billion in guarantees sold by New York-based AIG allowing the lenders to reduce the capital required for loss reserves. The firms may keep the contracts to hedge against declining assets rather than canceling them as AIG said it expects the banks to do, according to David Havens, managing director at investment bank Hexagon Securities LLC.
$200 billion dollars for foreign banks that we, the taxpayer, have now backstopped through The Fed with zero oversight or approval by Congress?
These aren’t even American businesses!
The average weighted length of the European swaps protecting residential loans is more than 25 years, while the span tied to corporate loans is about 6 years, AIG said in a regulatory filing. Contracts covering corporate loans in the Netherlands extend almost 45 years, and the swaps on mortgages in Denmark, France and Germany mature in more than 30 years.
So now we, the American Taxpayer, are backstopping mortgages in Netherlands, Denmark, France and Germany?
Tell me again why we’re doing this, and why people aren’t in prison?
Good question! That is why our taxes are going to shoot up, people, while our medical care is going to go down. We have to pay for the mortgages in the rest of the world, too, not just our own.
Screw that.
John Galt, anyone?
