Britain’s serious fraud office and U.S. regulators are combing through the records of AIG’s Financial Products Group, formerly located on the fifth floor of an office building in London’s
The unit’s small group of traders risked nearly half a trillion dollars to insure U.S. mortgages and other debt using complex financial products called credit default swaps, according to recent congressional testimony.
$280 million of the in-falling currency matter apparently went to the group’s head, Joseph Cassano, over the course of the last eight years.
Just… wow.
AIG’s Small London Office May Have Lost $500B
claw it back!
$500 million is a tragedy, $500 billion is a statistic
They booked all their trades through London, not a surprise.
So, are Erin Burnett’s new breasts enhanced or not? I’m waiting for some Victoria’s Secret salesgirl to come out claiming that she sold EB new bras in size
Fuck me. Necktie party in Connecticut, anyone?
British traders don’t lose money. British trading ‘models” do.
Everything is more expensive in London…even bungled trading strategies.
Sir Alan Sugar, voice for Britain? How funny!
This douche bag made 280 million dollars for losing 500 billion dollars? Well done…
Normally I’m dead against clawbacks but this guy should be shot!
To put things in perspective, just imagine is Donald Trump was giving regulatory commentary on the implosion of Lehman Brothers for the US.
He used to do that for DJT and remember what happened to that!
Short answer to the question, though, is no, they didnt lose $500 billion. That was the gross exposure on the CDS they wrote.
Cassano’s american by the way and presumably his models were as well.
@10
Shot? This guy should be commended. Do you have any idea how hard it is to lose that much money?
The article is full of agita inducing quotes, to wit:
“The group’s traders “found a crack in the system that was unregulated,” Koenig told “GMA.”"
Really a crack in the system? As oppossed to all the highly regulated CDS trades out there?
Take all the plumbers in the tristate area replacing every faucet there is and you’ll get an idea of the ‘crack’ we are talking about.
-C
What’s the difference between MadeOff and Cassano? 450 odd billion and 300 odd million victims.
dust off the gallows….up first Mr. Cassano.
@4 I’m almost positive that Miki from morning joe had the titjob, they look pretty sweet now (she also went to williams college, 10 years before erin).
also, shamwow guy has a new spot about some onion cutter, its not good and he is clearly now full of himself.
@17, I think it was Maria and no one noticed the new roll of fat in front of her.
I believe they are in the same building on Curzon Street as GLG and Moore Capital. On the same street is Crockfords casino. AIG should have just gambled there. It would have been more fun and cost the US Treasury fewer billions.
This was on the net or in the papers the week AIG went down. I noticed because it was going to blow away my very small non profit. Gotta get smarter boys-I don’t know fuck all about any of this and I knew this one.
To put this in context, Indonesia, the 4th largest country in the world, has a nominal GDP of $432B.
Wow! This kind of news gives me a lot of confidence in the world financial system. Makes me want to spend and invest. Makes me think that recovery is close at hand. Makes me think I shouldn’t worry anymore.
Hard-Working American
@20- mmmmm nope.
18 (17 here) i dont think so, have you checked out mika? maria already had decent guns, if anything she should jsut work on slimming her tree trunk thighs and ass down a bit
@24– agreed. mika now looks like near cover-girlish. is there a celebrity extreme makeover being shot or something?
@24 Caruso-Cabrera’s chest looked fricking gargantuan in that orange top today
Are they sure they looked everywhere? Its probably sitting on an empty desk somewhere.
I blame Jefferies.
you yanks went bloody mad, matey!
@27 – Cassano left it in his other suit and the drycleaning clerk totally boosted it. Are they ever going to admit that? I think not. So it’s this bullshit cover story about bad trading strategies.
@30 – That drycleaning clerk now owns Lichtenstein.
#3 has the answer you seek, padawan bitches!!
@32 – Shut up, Timmy.
@31 – “Lichtenstein” is fun to say. I’d totally buy it if I found $500B in somebody’s dry cleaning.
I mean, they’ve already got castles and stuff, all I would need would be frickin’ sharks in the frickin’ moat with frickin’ laser beams on their heads.
#23 mmm,yup. Somewhere really simple. I don’t read WSJ. It could have been somewhere in Google newsUK. We are not talking financial expert here. The head of AIG thought it was a problem for the London office and whoever wrote it thought they might have gotten out of control.
can’t believe it, it’s a huge money