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

The biggest reason, though, for the confidence within the firm was the unusual nature of AIG itself. It was not an investment bank at the mercy of the short-term financing market. It had very little debt and some $40 billion in cash on hand. With a balance sheet of more than $1 trillion, it was simply too big to fail.