It's All Eliot Spitzer's Fault
Here is part one of a three-part series from the Washington Post on AIG and the growth of its Financial Products division. This is a fascinating story about the creation and growth of the exotic financial products, built on cheap credit and complex financial models, that lead to AIG's collapse and exacerbated the Credit Crisis. One theme of the article that sticks out to me is the involvement of Hank Greenberg in the Financial Products division, even from its start-up phase. He had the pluse of AIG and its wide range of businesses. When I worked for a subsidiary of AIG (that was nothing more than a pimple on the elephant's ass) the fear of Greenberg was palpable. I am sure that when he was forced out by Eliot Spitzer the oversight of the Finanical Products division became less intense. Greenberg could not have stopped the Credit Crisis, but AIG's fate may have been different.