The Fall of AIG

Here are links to a series that came out this week in The Washington Post on The Fall of AIG

The Beautiful Machine: the birth of the Financial Products Division
A Crack in the System: Credit Default Swaps
Downgrades and downfall

Here's a profile of Gary Gorton, a finance professor at Yale's School of Management, who worked with the Financial Products group for 12 years, designing risk models for Credit Default Swaps. His paper, "The Panic of 2007" will be published this year in the American Economic Review.

Here's a link to an interview on Fresh Air (NPR) with Michael Greenberger (Former Commodities Futures Trading Commissioner) that aired in late September. Siyi's 9 year old son remarked after hearing it that he finally understood what Credit Default Swaps were.