TPM Editor’s Blog

Axis of Weasels

You know joseph-cassano-blog.jpgwho that guy is? That’s Joseph Cassano. As far as we know this is the only commercially available photo of him. AIG was actually a decently run and profitable insurance company. The problem was a small shop in London, AIG’s the ‘financial products’ division. Cassano ran it. And that’s where they wrote more than $400 billion of credit default swaps, mainly on crap mortgage debt. That means about $400 billion of de facto insurance policies he wrote that his company had no assets to cover. Great idea, right?

But don’t worry: that’s where your money is going now.

Cassano is the guy at the center of the AIG implosion. But of course he couldn’t bring down the global economy alone.

Click here to see Cassano and the rest of the Weasels who tanked the world economy in our Axis of Weasels: The Men Who Ruined the Economy photo gallery.

Josh Marshall

Josh Marshall is editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com.

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