Hey Thunder - you see this?

[NOTTHOR]

Hank Greenberg is suing the government for the AIG bailout claiming the terms amounted to a taking. He has David Boies, who is probably one of the top 5 trial lawyers in America (if not the best), representing him. The terms were fucking draconian as shit given the dilution the government's 79.9% warrant and I highly doubt they had authority to do that, but I remember the day of the bailout liek it was yesterday and watched it closely bince I held AIG shares and am still working off capital losses from back then on other ill-fated investments. The terms were draconian, but I think the Takings Clause claim is going to fail because, while AIG was singled out for different treatment than the banks, AIG got terms from the government that were better than market terms available at that moment. There were no deals to be had, as not even Buffett could have orchestrated that bailout, but had there been a private market remedy available, the terms would have been worse. Furthermore, AIG fucked itself by issuing parent level guarantees on swaps that were triggered if AIG ever ceased to retain a AAA credit rating. To me, Greenberg has a claim that his investment was impaired, but it is a fiduciary duties claim against the board and officers of AIG, not the government. I presume he's paying Boies a hefty hourly rate plus a contingency to take this sort of hail mary.

finance.yahoo.com/news/g-trial-witnesses-central-cast-012054413.html

[thunderhawk]

From a metaphysical perspective, if you are limited to option A and B, and if your option B is certain annihilation, can you reasonably bitch about the terms of option A?