The puzzle as to AIG gambling is that it is one of the ruling monopoly finance corporations. It doesn't seem probable that it would gain that level of concentration of wealth by undertaking ventures in which the odds of winning were not heavily in its favor. It would mostly likely have become a "king" of the capitalist "hill" by taking many _low_ risk _ to itself_ actions. This is almost true by the definition of the word "probable". One probably gets rich by taking actions one is probably going to win, not by taking actions that one is probably going to lose. They make sure bets, not true bets.
I realize that the myth is that capitalism's captains are risk takers and that higher interest payment is rationalized by higher risk taking. But I think this is exactly that - a myth. Those most successful in business and finance are those who figure out how to decrease the risk of loss to themselves the most. Again this almost follows deductively from the definition of "risk". Companies don't win out in competition by fair play, but by cheating to raise their own chances of winning. Assuming the above argument is true, why would AIG, and the other monopoly finance corporations that just went bankrupt, suddenly start taking actions that were very risky in the sense of risking that they would lose ? Why would they start "gambling" ? I usually say this by saying: Yes, Wall Street is a giant casino, and the biggest financial institutions are the House. As we know, the House almost always wins. The odds, the risks, are rigged heavily in its favor. It doesn't compete fairly with the customers. Why would the Wall Street House suddenly start taking even odds, or bad odds and bets, i.e. heavy risks ? The answer seems to be that the Wall Street bosses got complacent and careless, at least with their corporations' money, if not their own. They started relying on the mathematical formulas and using the complex derivatives, but the math was fraudulent or bad. They thought they were putting their companies in sure things, as usual, but it turned out that they got conned. Who conned them ? The intermediary sellers of mortgage debt paper , bad debt paper, is one candidate group. The finance corporation's mathematicians, though it is not clear that that group got paid as heavily. Well, they got salaries and bonuses. Perhaps the con artists are right in front of our faces. The AIG and other finance corporate executives and bureaucrats, got many bonuses, as we know from the recent headlines. They got many bonuses before the current scandalized and protested bonuses. So, the executives and bureaucrats didn't go bankrupt personally. It was the corporations that went bankrupt. So, this group of bureaucrats probably didn't intentionally fall into the risky ventures, but neglegently, failing to do due diligence, in the language of the corporate culture and law. Perhaps in a word this crisis is a sudden reversal,turning into its opposite, of taking care of the monopoly finance shareholders' interests ? _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
