Bloomberg says about AIG:
“The insurer made $18.7 billion in payments tied to swaps in the three weeks after AIG’s Sept. 16 bailout, according to another person familiar with the situation. The largest recipients were Societe Generale SA, which got $4.83 billion, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with $2.97 billion, Deutsche Bank AG with $2.92 billion, Calyon Securities with $1.89 billion and Merrill Lynch & Co. with $1.32 billion, the person said.”
Karl Denninger has a concise wrap up of this on his page.
If Goldman and Merrill were collecting billions from CDOs, credit-default swaps, etc., why did they fall?
Goldman didn’t fail and Merrill is now part of Bank of America. Perhaps the money that Merrill got was not even enough to offset its bad bets. This is high stakes gambling.