Insiders talk about this. You should know about it.
When I talk to financial insiders it is almost universally agreed that Eliot (Emperors Club VIP) Spitzer, was the cause of the 2008-09 financial crash.
The sequence of events begins in early 2005 when Spitzer was the Attorney General of New York running for President of the U.S. (like Teddy Roosevelt and Tom Dewey). Spitzer issued several subpoenas to Hank Greenberg, the CEO of the largest insurance company in the world AIG, which had been founded by Greenberg in 1967.
Spitzer hounded Greenberg in the press, unmercifully driving down the credit rating of AIG and its stock price. Finally Greenberg, in the interests of his company, resigned a few months later.
Greenberg was followed as CEO by Martin Sullivan and Robert Willumstad, neither of whom had the vaguest notion of how to run the largest and most complex insurance company in the world. Under Sullivan several departments quit and were left to the remaining bureaucrats to run and bungle. All of which led to a mortgage bond insurance and related bank holdings melt down (some financial folk focus on Joe Cassano the bureaucrat who emerged to run the Financial Products division).
In mid-2008 the U.S. Treasurer, Hank Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke stepped in to prop up AIG with a government investment of $200 billion which really was immediately used by AIG to prop-up a dozen banks, mostly international banks ($150 billion went to foreign banks).
Thus did we have the financial crisis of 2008-09 which led to 7 million unemployed Americans and five times that number outside the U.S.
There were never any criminal or civil charges brought against Hank Greenberg. He settled a minor accounting charge with the SEC a few weeks ago for $15 million. The $15 million settlement by Greenberg, related to a trillion dollar company brought down by Eliot (Emperors Club VIP) Spitzer.
Hank Greenberg is back helping run AIG. This time he will have sufficient foresight to groom a successor.
The sequence of events begins in early 2005 when Spitzer was the Attorney General of New York running for President of the U.S. (like Teddy Roosevelt and Tom Dewey). Spitzer issued several subpoenas to Hank Greenberg, the CEO of the largest insurance company in the world AIG, which had been founded by Greenberg in 1967.
Greenberg was followed as CEO by Martin Sullivan and Robert Willumstad, neither of whom had the vaguest notion of how to run the largest and most complex insurance company in the world. Under Sullivan several departments quit and were left to the remaining bureaucrats to run and bungle. All of which led to a mortgage bond insurance and related bank holdings melt down (some financial folk focus on Joe Cassano the bureaucrat who emerged to run the Financial Products division).
In mid-2008 the U.S. Treasurer, Hank Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke stepped in to prop up AIG with a government investment of $200 billion which really was immediately used by AIG to prop-up a dozen banks, mostly international banks ($150 billion went to foreign banks).
Thus did we have the financial crisis of 2008-09 which led to 7 million unemployed Americans and five times that number outside the U.S.
There were never any criminal or civil charges brought against Hank Greenberg. He settled a minor accounting charge with the SEC a few weeks ago for $15 million. The $15 million settlement by Greenberg, related to a trillion dollar company brought down by Eliot (Emperors Club VIP) Spitzer.
Hank Greenberg is back helping run AIG. This time he will have sufficient foresight to groom a successor.