I haven't had time to dive into this yet, but here's some food for thought.
Last weekend AIG released information about the amounts and recipients of roughly $100 billion of its government loans from September to December 2008. The utterly unreported surprise is that the staid, boring, heavily regulated insurance businesses managed to run up losses on securities lending requiring $44 billion of government support. By way of contrast, the credit derivatives widely blamed for bringing down the world's financial system were consuming $27 billion of direct government support [and another $27 billion of indirect support, totaling $54 billion]; municipal investment agreements (essentially, deposits) made by municipalities with AIG Financial Products took another $12 billion, and maturing debt took $13 billion. http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/03/who-broke-aig-.html
Wine is sunlight, held together by water - Galileo Galilei
Un jour sans vin est comme un jour sans soleil - Louis Pasteur
Water separates the people of the world; wine unites them - anonymous
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world - Ernest Hemingway
Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance - Benjamin Franklin
