Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street Highlight

AIG’s models all indicated that its risk of loss was almost zero. All of the premiumlike fees it charged for the credit default swaps added up to serious profits, with the Financial Products division reportedly booking $2.5 billion in profits in 2005 alone.10 Cassano even declared as late as August 2007, “It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one dollar in any of those transactions.”