That’s on the order of $60,000,000,000:
At this point, nationalizing and liquidating it is looking like a good option to me.
So, color me dumb, but shouldn’t that get it out of the way?? Once the overvalued assets are written down, shouldn’t AIG be able to go forward if it is indeed a viable business? What good would dumping more money into them do?
To be fair, the loss is probably going to be a paper one, indicating the writing down of assets that have already hammered their credit rating. It’s the final step in accounting for the impact of the bad debt they acquired in the run up to the meltdown.
Well, all I have to say is that I’m glad AIG paid out all those bonuses to their executives! Imagine how much the company would have lost if they hadn’t given that money to the execs, and those execs had all quit and been replaced by less capable people!
Yup, it takes top flight talent to generate numbers like that.
Uhhh, why should an INSURANCE company be posting big ass losses baring some MASSIVE disaster(s)?
Hell, if all the stuff they are being paid to insure has dropped in actual value, as far as they are concerned shouldn’t that be a big positive?!
I guess the answer is it really isnt an insurance company in the strictest sense.
One of the things that AIG has been insuring was investments. You know, so that if someone invested in a company and it went under, they wouldn’t have to worry about losing anything.
Plus, an insurance company doesn’t keep all its money in a bag in a vault. It makes investments that are fairly liquid so it can get ahold of its money to make payments after a disaster. I think those are a big part of what was devalued and made this loss.
And hence one of the problems with our modern economy. Investment without the potential for loss is just a ponsi scheme at one level or another 
To show how seriously he’s taking this, the new CEO is only going to award himself a $20m bonus.
I propose that AIG needs an image makeover, which I will be happy to supply for 300 million dollars. From now on, Henry Winkler will be their corporate spokesman. Henceforth AIG will be known as Ayyyyy IG.
Of course, that would get me arrested for conducting a Fonzi scheme…
:rimshot:
Still $38 billion shy of the yearly record set by AOL-Time Warner back in 2002. I’m sure Steve Case, et al, would be glad to have that title taken away. 
Any investment has the potential for loss. The cost of insuring the investment against any loss would negate any positive returns that the investment may produce. People use insurance contracts to hedge against catastrophic losses, of which there have been many of late.
I think I am going to Ralph the mouth
You know there’s four quarters in a year, right?
Yes. What is it that you think the second sentence implied?
Insurers invest a lot. It used to be that this was a way to hedge against increases in the premiums they paid out. These days, of course, it’s a trainwreck.
True, but at one point in time you could expect insurers to invest in reasonable things. Shit (and I mean that in the most literal sense) like “interest only” mortgages, and the other bizarro things that folks have come up with in recent years should have never have been considered a “reasonable” risk. AIG got themselves into trouble because they were willing to underwrite things that shouldn’t have been underwritten. It is like the dotcom bubble, only more so. Why these “educated” folks should have thought that putting money into some of this stuff was a good idea, is beyond me.
So if AIG reports a $60 billion loss (or close to it), how will that impact the psyche of the markets and people in general? Might this trigger the Chicken Littles into a panic than even rational minds might second guess themselves?
Maybe it will inspire a sense of confidence. Grow this big, and fuck up this big, and Uncle Sam will not let you fail.