The Wall Street Journal is reporting today 2/23 in its print edition (p. C3) that Standard and Poor's cut Greece's long-term credit rating to "selective default." A panel is going to decide whether or not the credit default swaps should be payed out.
I bet the Wall Street vultures pushed for this rating so that they can cash in on their credit default swaps, which are insurance contracts on defaults.
Here is a brief definition of credit default swaps http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_default_swaps/index.html
And what insurance companies would have to pay out on these credit default swaps?
AIG! No surprise there. Here is an excerpt from an article written by the New York Times back in June 2011 on exposure to a Greek default:
[excerpted] "The looming uncertainties are whether these contracts — which insure
against possibilities like a Greek default — are concentrated in the
hands of a few companies, and if these companies will be able to pay out
billions of dollars to cover losses during a default. If there were a
single company standing behind many of these contracts, that company
would be akin to the American International Group of the euro crisis.
The American insurer needed a $182 billion federal bailout
during the financial crisis because it had insured the performance of
mortgage bonds through derivatives and could not pay on all of them.
And since AIG is on the dole from the US Government, those credit default swap payouts would ultimately be paid by Uncle Sam.
More back-door bailouts of the Greedy Bankers on the way, brought to you by the villainous destroyers of nations!
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