A Couple Important Articles

WSJ, New Fears as Credit Markets Tighten Up (sub.req.)

NYT: AIG, Where Taxpayers’ Dollars Go to Die

Both go to the key question how long and at what cost the federal government will continue to protect the interest of bondholders.

This was the graf that most caught my eye, which comes from the WSJ piece …

In a report over the weekend, analysts from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said they had expected government intervention to help protect the interests of bondholders at financial institutions. However, they noted that “in the extreme, losses can be so large that the political willpower to continue bailing out banks and insurance companies evaporates, forcing senior creditors to share in losses or producing other unorthodox outcomes.”

I’d love to see that report.