Time to Open Source All AIG Documents
Today’s must read article comes from Eliot Spitzer (former NY Governor and AG), Frank Partnoy (University of San Diego law professor), and William Black (University of Missouri-Kansas City economics and law professor).
Their request: Make public all of AIG’s emails, documents, and correspondence public. Put it all online where is can be read, analyzed and dissected by the public. That’s the only way to figure out, they argue, what actually happened:
“A.I.G. was at the center of the web of bad business judgments, opaque financial derivatives, failed economics and questionable political relationships that set off the economic cataclysm of the past two years. When A.I.G.’s financial products division collapsed — ultimately requiring a federal bailout of $180 billion — those who had been prospering from A.I.G.’s schemes scurried for taxpayer cover. Yet, more than a year after the rescue began, crucial questions remain unanswered. Who knew what, and when? Who benefited, and by exactly how much? Would A.I.G.’s counterparties have failed without taxpayer support?
The three of us, as experienced investigators and prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer these questions now. But we know where the answers are. They are in the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, the government should insist that the company immediately make these materials public. By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of “open source” investigation.
Once the documents are available for everyone to inspect, a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom, as reporters, victims and angry citizens have a chance to piece together the story. In past cases of financial fraud — from the complex swaps that Bankers Trust sold to Procter & Gamble in the early 1990s to the I.P.O. kickback schemes of the late 1990s to the fall of Enron — e-mail messages and internal documents became the central exhibits in our collective understanding of what happened, and why.”
I think its a brillinat idea . . . too bad it has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever happening . . .
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Source:
Show Us the E-Mail
ELIOT SPITZER, FRANK PARTNOY and WILLIAM BLACK
NYT, December 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/opinion/20partnoy.html
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December 20th, 2009 at 9:25 am
I think it would be very beneficial to 1 or more ‘isms too
Save the ____ through volunteerism
December 20th, 2009 at 9:46 am
“I think its a brilliant idea”-BR
x2
also, this type of Idea should be broadly applied.
these ‘People’ (the “Gov’t”) pretend to Act in ‘our Name’, for ‘our Interests’ — if they, truly, are, thay should have nothing to hide.
December 20th, 2009 at 9:51 am
although a great idea x2,
…you won’t find any mention of the “side-letters” in the electronic documentation,
but, perhaps, they will find the light of day once an investigation gets rolling
December 20th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Are you kidding? The light of day piercing the darkness of corporate/government bedsharing? It would be like holy H2O sprinkled upon a group of demonic hooligans: ” tI snrub. tI snrub. tseirp eht raeF.”
December 20th, 2009 at 10:51 am
<bBut vampires burn in sunlight! We must continue our current course of lies, fraud, sophistry, obfuscation, predictions, divinations, positive thinking and general BS.
This cannot end well.. We have built a system on bad faith that is now too complex to run with bad faith.
December 20th, 2009 at 11:23 am
What I do not get is why William Black is on the outside of the current Administration, United States Attorney General’s Office, or Presidential appointments relating 2008-2009 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.
It would seem to me he has the kind of experience that could bring down a VERY serious hammer on abuse in the 2008 Banking and Loans Crisis. He could erect the necessary firewall of deterrent, in prosecuting groups of offenders. Not just at AIG but widely throughout the industry.
He could in many instances, draw a line back to the Savings and Loan Crisis, and do a “where are they now” report, and possibly show a patter of behavior that is sufficient to denote it as a chronic, repeat offender type of activity.
It is my opinion that deterrent is what the nation needs, criminal prosecution to send out the message of what is NOT tolerable. I think Black has the right amount of conviction to set down deterrent that lasts for the next 25-40 years or longer. And the nation needs this, in order that genuine confidence can be restored.
Also, the financial industry needs it because nobody in American can see a wheat-from-chaff-type-separation occurring. No bad faith actors are being separated from good and decent actors.
We need someone like Black who though he is salty at times, will act to bring a firm grip on the bar used to prosecute Breach of Duty, Fraudulent Conversion and Constructive Fraud that is passing for heroism these days.
As long as the financial waters are muddied by people “who got away” with exploiting public trust and abusing good will, I think the financial industry will be in a permanent state of freak town. Might as well change the name of the financial district in New York or add a by-line … Freaktown U.S.A.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
This is a smart concept. Opening up the files would initiate the process of restoring credibility within the financial system. No doubt there will be outrage at the practices and communications but this is a necessary first step towards gaining a consensus on the actions needed to clean up the industry.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Turn William Black loose on this stuff? OMG. When it comes to financial fraud he is a leading member of the reality based community. You could end up staring into the abyss. Hopefully from the other edge this time.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
eliot spitzer is a discredited governor and not, imo, because of philandering. his zeal to promote his power caused him to legally move against and lose against the head of the nyse and a former founder of home depot. both won their cases.
the only person who could help aig was maurice (hank) greenberg. he had left aig before the mess but was blamed by the politicos and the press. he lost a zillion $’s and fought aig at every turn. he is still the largest shareholder in aig. he pled guilty, almost like a nolo contendre, to cut the travails of a long court case. the government lawyers are insidious and that’s a generous statement. even if your found innocent they will never apologize.
to cut to the chase, greenberg basically founded aig and built it into a behemoth. nobody knew or knows more about operating aig than he. at the onset of the height of the crisis, greenberg put together group of rich, very rich, investors to make a bid for the company. the government was deaf and ignored him. subsequently the roof really caved in. subsequently every gov’t appointee was cashiered until the present. now greenberg is being asked for advice. the government will never learn. at least this current government.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
typo: your is you’re
December 20th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
ezduzit,
if you’re going down that corridor..
might, as well, open this door, http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=AIG+CIA+Greenburg+Drug+Running while you’re at it..
there’s more than one Reason that many of these ops (i.e. AIG, GM, C, et al.) were ‘Bailed-Out’, rather than BK’d — (BK Court has a tendency to ‘air out’ way more ‘detail’ than many would, ever, like to see)
December 20th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
This is going to happen in a country that now condones torture and suspension of rights? A country with a lawmaking body that will vote against the opinions of large majorities of citizens?
Just dreaming if you think so. It won’t happen.
December 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
From the Naked Capitalism.
This is a testament to the fact that Obama’s administration is an extension of Bush’s. Basically the Supreme Court destroyed civil liberties in this country last week and no MSM noticed it. Welcome to the land of freedom and liberty.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/12/supreme-court-guts-due-process-protection.html
December 20th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Why the fuck can’t we just *force* the executive branch to release everything?
At worst, it would embarrass some oligarchs and almost certainly reveal a number of prosecutable offenses. But it’s not like it’s a goddamn war or a national security issue or anything of its ilk.
December 20th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Only sounds good. What is to stop anyone from either adding to or deleting from emails? How can you guarantee the integrity of each and every hard drive? And how can you stop anyone from forging emails? Oh, and piecing together the tens of thousands of cross referenced items contained within each email will take a team of PAID researchers years to do and even then, like the Climate scientists, data will be manipulated by the zealots thus yielding another bunch of charges from the anti-zealots.
December 20th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
“…Oh, and piecing together the tens of thousands of cross referenced items contained within each email will take a team of PAID researchers years to do..”– howard0339, above
not necessarily, see: http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Data+Analytics+Text+Search+Character+Recognition+Data+Mining
LSS: this ‘stuff’, the Data Mining apps, is being shaken out, “in the Wild”..
IOW, it already exists.
the other issues, that you were raising, are a little dicier..
one of the Reasons this: “”I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people…they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
— Thomas Jefferson
December 20th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
linkage- http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1673?page=1
December 20th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
The Congressional commission to investigate the crisis should have all legal and other authority including subpoena to get to this info. Hey if they just found 2000 Bush era e-mails anything is possible.
December 20th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
“The Congressional commission to investigate the crisis should have all legal and other authority including subpoena to get to this info.”
Yeh, right. Who do you think paid the way into office for those committee members?
December 20th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
@f411: I pay attention to people who make sense, no matter their “credentials”.
December 20th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Fabulous idea. And right after that happens, we can go after the underlying data for the Climate Research Union in England that has all the info about global warming, or should I say, Global Warming.
Oh, wait…
December 21st, 2009 at 2:51 am
bruerr@11:23am .. don’t remember reading that earlier – and I’ve read down to 3:07pm at a previous visit .. was that one of those posts that got flagged (being considered) / like for a new poster / or other reasons
then added in the timestamp of “Submit Comment” .. I hate that .. WordPress should put it at the bottom with the real presented to us timestamp .. or am I mistaken
~~~
BR: If a comment is held for moderation or flagged as Spam, but then subsequently approved, it appears it slips into the comment stream at its original time . . .
December 21st, 2009 at 2:53 am
awaiting moderation?
December 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am
@BR – yep I knew that .. what I don’t know is what those flag items are .. above “WordPush” maybe
December 21st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Discovery is the word, and the word was Good. Let Spitzer, Portnoy and Black discover America. How many licks will it take to get to the center of it? Never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.