Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

What went unspoken was the fact that all three banks, and virtually all of Wall Street, were huge counterparties to AIG. If the company were to fail, they would all face serious consequences. Therefore, there was a huge incentive to keep the insurer alive for everyone at the table. On the surface, Goldman looked like one of AIG’s biggest counterparties, but earlier that morning, Goldman’s Gary Cohn had boasted internally that the firm had hedged so much of its exposure to AIG that it might actually make $50 million if the company collapsed. The firm’s decision to buy insurance in the form of credit default swaps against AIG beginning in late 2007 was starting to seem like a smart investment. The firm had conducted what it internally called a “WOW analysis”—a worst-of-the-worst case scenario—and it was quickly coming true. Even though Goldman had hedged its direct exposure to AIG, Blankfein appreciated the larger problem: The collateral damage to its other counterparties and the rest of the market could expose the firm to untold billions in crippling losses.