“The Government’s unduly harsh treatment of AIG in comparison to other institutions seemingly was misguided and had no legitimate purpose, even considering concerns about ‘moral hazard,’
There is no doubt that many banks got off fairly lightly, Goldman Sachs was allowed to become a commercial bank (so it could access FEd funds) and go a full payout on its AIG credit default swaps ( a nice little cheque of $8.8 billion) and its competitor Lehman put out of business - very nice treatment if you ask me !
In most countries it is called crony capitalism when the state decides which companies it will bail out and which it will let fail...lets not forget Hank Paulson earnt an estimated $700 million while working at Goldman Sachs and was one of the key decision makers that helped Goldman get such favourable treatment during the crisis.
The full judgement ,makes a great read and is shown below: