"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .
cavelamb himself wrote:
The A.C. Davis Financial Recovery Plan

A friend sent this -- interesting indeed

It may be flawed --
...
So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals
$425,000.00.

Make that "It is flawed" not "It may be flawed." It is only $425.00 per
person, not $425,000.00. But what's a factor of a thousand among friends?
I
think this A.C. Davis has the proper math skills to become Secretary of
the
Treasury!

;-)
You are exactly right, and those "slide rule" errors are even more annoying
now that nobody uses slide rules!

Regrettably, however, that is not the worst part of the discussion about the
$85 billion AIG issue, nor of the closely related (IMHO) $700 billion
mortgage fiasco. The greater problem is that, even now, a search on the
public Internet does not reveal much information about the basis of the
numbers--instead a search yields "talking points" for a "debate" and a near
total lack of substance.

Of the two, the AIG case is the easier to parse: AIG got into the business
of "insuring" the mutual bond positions of retirement funds as a "hedge"
that (apparently) allowed the funds to "overweight" that portion of their
portfolios. However, that does not tell us whether the crisis was due to
mutual bond defaults or simply rerating of the bonds; nor does it tell us
whether $85 billion is the total asset value, a potential loss projection
based upon a presumption of sale during a period of default*, or some other
line of reasoning. About all that we do "know" is that the federal
government is simply stepping in as a guarantor, and gaining an equity
position, during this period, and that there is a presumption that they will
eventually sell back out of their position at a profit--much as they did in
the cases of Chrysler Corporation about 25 years ago.

The $700 mortgage bailout is much harder to sort out. I could not find out
what it covers, nor why, in the time I could alot to it--and even found one
assertion that it is simply a number "out of thin air" that was made large
enough to cover anything that could possibly be found in the financial data
when it is complied and analysed. Ultimately, they will simply have to
solve the immediate problem--probably in increments.

That's not the end, because the underlying problems with mortgage guidelines
have not received enough discussion; nor have the merits of rising home
prices and related increases in ad valorem taxes....