"Even worse than this is that the failure of AIG is part of a systemic
failure of the anglo-saxon financial world. If AIG alone had failed,
then the lessons to be learned would be at AIG alone. However, as
clearly as AIG itself is a case study in corporate governance failures
that I hope will be taught to the future class of sheep/managers at
Harvard Business School, the real failures in the US and UK banking
systems stem from an extremist belief in the free market. How else to
explain the simultaneous failures of virtually every large US and UK
bank? And the blame for this lies squarely in the corrupt circles of
US politico-business classes....Basically at the heart of the US
democratic system is the fundamental issue that those with money can
influence those with power and that usually their interests are
narrow, short term and take no account of the country at large."