Forum Post: Only in Broken American Capitalism Can Wall Street Make Risky Bets, buy "insurance" policies on the bets, Fail, and Require Taxpayers to Pay 100% of the Insurance Policies

Yes, this is what happened. Wall Street made risky bets, bought derivatives "insurance policies" on the bets from companies like AIG, the government failed to regulate derivatives, AIG did not keep any reserves to pay out on the insurance policies, the risky bets failed, Wall Street went to AIG to cash in their insurance policies, AIG almost collapsed, the government bailed out AIG with taxpayer money and paid the "insurance policies." And we paid out the insurance policies 100% on the dollar.

Capitalism is not supposed to reward those who make risky bets, but ours does. Welcome to modern American Capitalism where all you have to do is buy off our government to keep them from regulating anything. All you have to do is have a revolving door of Wall Street big wigs controlling our government agencies.