2009-03-09

Web content for recovery.gov: AIG's swap owners and value

Marketplace aired a commentary by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Central to his worry was this:

The problem is that . . . we don't know who holds the swaps and how much they are owed. We don't know if the Fed is only honoring AIG's credit default swaps to ensure the solvency of banks and pension funds, or whether it may be paying off credit default swaps even in cases where hedge funds or other speculators were just making a bet that a bond would go bad.

So let's post these AIG transactions at recovery.gov, even if some customer privacy must be honored. And if this isn't possible for some reason, the amount of the swaps and a general description of the owners should be posted, if necessary filtered through a watchdog middleman.

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