“The latest admission from the (defunct yet living) company is that well over $100 billion in taxpayer monies has gone to counter-parties at 100 cents on the dollar — no haircut, no penalty, no cost to those who made bad bets or chose their counter parties poorly. They were completely whole by Uncle Sam and the American taxpayer.” via AIG: $105 Billion to Counterparties | The Big Picture.
This is exactly what is so frustrating — these parties bear no cost of their misdeeds, we bear it all. Bailouts are dumb dumb dumb. We need to let these organizations go through bankruptcy so that all can share in the pain.