>This link gives a better picture of actual status:
>
>http://www.3news.co.nz/News/BusinessNews/AIG-posts-US617B-4Q-loss-bailout-is-restructured/tabid/421/articleID/93609/cat/52/Default.aspx
>
>So far AIG has shed its stake in 9 other businesses and has plans to sell some of the jewels in its crown. IMHO the last 3 sentences tell a useful story. Compare the size of the loss to the drop in revenue. Consider the status of AIG's divisions and the parts of itself that it plans to sell. Also consider that the Government if it comes to it can unravel CDS positions. You may say "never" but they confiscated gold in the Depression for the greater good. Finally, some of these actions can be considered highly inflationary. you may doubt the values in AIG's asset section but consider the effects of a few years of mega-inflation. A cynic might say "bring it on, that'll be great news for the US and its householders."

For those who don't know how it looks, imagine getting a paycheck on Friday 4PM, because of a field visit, when everyone else in the office got theirs by noon and ran to the nearest bank to cash as much as they can. Of course, the banks have run out of cash by 1PM.

On the way home, I visit every shop that's still open, but none accept checks on a Friday evening (4PM is dark in December), because by Monday morning these would be worth barely a half, and banks don't accept checks from shops on weekends. In the end, I find one shop that takes checks, but they are virtually empty. I buy two bags of pastry and two bags of pudding powder - the only two usable items they had. Shelves are almost blank, they don't restock on Fridays.

Monday morning, the remaining money is worth about two cartons of cigarettes. Nevertheless, I write checks to about twice the limit, because by the time they add the overdraft interest, inflation will make it negligible - the banks are always too slow when it comes to that, and them applying rates as of a couple of days ago makes all the difference. While it lasted, I lost about two salaries for not spending in advance months before (calculated against the rate of then German mark on the day of each transaction, in or out - and the total value of out was that much less then the value of in).

When you ask for a price of something, and the vendor gets the phone first before telling you, you know it's gone too far already. And, mind you, if anyone wants to linearize the inflation graph, it needs logarithm of a logarithm - it's exponential exponential. I still have a few worthless banknotes with four inches of zeros. You really stop counting those - you just eyeball the length of the price.

So, after Miloševic's crash course in inflation, we're ready. Is everybody else?