Chapter 16-17 Summary and Analysis

The effort to save AIG makes up the large part of Chapter 16. Tim Geithner called JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, both of whom had advised AIG and had a good idea of its inner workings, to come meet with the other Wall Street leaders to look at a solution to save AIG. As they had done with Lehman, the group tried to gauge the extent of the problem and then find ways to raise the money to save the company. The impact of the failure of AIG was sure to affect all of the people in the room, whose firms all had close ties with the insurance company.

After much analysis, it was determined that after putting up all of its available assets for a short term loan, AIG would still be short $30 to $40 billion. They reported this to...