And I feel quite confident that the TBTFs, at a minimum, have been made whole from the GM & Chrysler bailouts. Ceberus possibly not so much, but it and it's owners have survived. The real victims were pension funds, etc. that held some of those bonds, but they have been the grass on which the TBTFs have grazed for the last five years. It WAS Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner, all three, almost certainly, who brought about the situation where GS would get 100% of the value of the worthless CDSs AIG had sold to it. The pretext that Geithner could not get hold of Paulson and caved to the French threat I find more credible as ass cover for Geithner than as reality. He could have imposed the haircut and then it would have been the French banks that would have been responsible for crashing the system were they to have sued.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."