This is the kind of financial innovation that makes the U.S. economy work better:

Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won (NYT)

Peddling rickety mortgage-derived securities and then holding instruments that make money when said securities flop, is how you get money to valued start-ups in computers, communication, energy, and biotechnology.

Also this:

... insurance companies, whose annuities provide income for many retirees, collectively paid $2 billion for Goldman's risky high-yield bonds.

Among the bigger buyers: Ambac Assurance purchased $923 million of Goldman's bonds; the Teachers Insurance and Annuities Association, $141.5 million; New York Life, $96 million; Prudential, $70 million; and Allstate, $40.5 million, according to the data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

So there were other benefits as well.


posted by Quiddity at 12/24/2009 07:45:00 AM