1/2 Trillion Loss? Just Another Day at the Office

Seeing stories like this make me incredibly upset. Not just the sticker shock of the size of the loss, but also the amount of money made by those who ran the entire global financial system into the 7th level of hell.

ABC News is reporting that a London office of AIG might have lost up to $500 billion dollars:

Ground zero for AIG's spectacular implosion, which has soaked up more federal bailout money than any other entity, appears to have been a small London branch office that may have lost nearly half a trillion dollars in bad deals.

The disastrous deals were built up in a decade and, when the crisis hit, the man who ran the unit for the last eight years retired after making $280 million for himself and leaving with a $1 million-a-month consulting contract.

So who was the genius who deserved to be so well compensated? A man by the name of Joseph Cassano.


In the article, ABC News claims they have a tape of Cassano speaking to investors. This is a quote that will live in infamy for many, many years to come:

It is hard for us with, and without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing $1 in any of those transactions.

Brilliant. And now we, the taxpayers, are subsidizing his $1 million a month salary for "consulting services" (I'm sure its work that adds loads of value to AIG). This is one of the more infuriating things I have heard or seen so far during this collapse. Forget Madoff, forget Jerome Kerviel, forget Brian Hunter, forget Nick Leeson...if you roll up every "Rogue Trader" into one, they don't even come close to this man.