Over at Slate they’ve realized that the Tom Hanks movie from the 80s “The Money Pit” is actually just a documentary about our current financial crisis and the bailout of AIG. Specifically, the scene in which the kitchen catches fire and the bathtub falls through the floor. (Video, inside…)
Of all the metaphors we have seen for the current economic crisis — and yes, we’ve seen more than a few — this is clearly the most apt.
I have to imagine Henry Paulson feels a lot like Tom Hanks right now.
The dawn of Monday morning brought news that despite the sinking of $123 billion of taxpayer money into mega-insurer AIG, the company is nowhere near fixed. (Remember, AIG is in the business of offering credit-default swaps, which are essentially insurance plans for mortgage bonds.) So the U.S. government is revising the bailout and buying $40 billion of AIG’s stock through the $700 billion bailout fund. In all, taxpayers will have invested about $150 billion in AIG. (It’s not $163 billion because the government renegotiating some of the original loan’s terms.)
The article goes to speculate as to whether other “too big to fail” companies will turn into similar money pits — car companies for example.
The Money Pit [Slate]
