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Throwing a drowning man a yacht. Why do we even bother prosecuting things like cannabis possession when criminal behavior like this is rewarded at the most lavish levels of luxury and unaccountability?

Habayeb, 37, was chief financial officer for the AIG division that oversaw AIG Financial Products, the unit that had sold the swaps to the banks. One of his goals was to persuade the banks to accept discounts of as much as 40 cents on the dollar, according to people familiar with the matter. [...]

After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public. [...]

The New York Fed’s decision to pay the banks in full cost AIG -- and thus American taxpayers -- at least $13 billion. [...]

The deal contributed to the more than $14 billion that over 18 months was handed to Goldman Sachs, whose former chairman, Stephen Friedman, was chairman of the board of directors of the New York Fed when the decision was made. Friedman, 71, resigned in May, days after it was disclosed by the Wall Street Journal that he had bought more than 50,000 shares of Goldman Sachs stock following the takeover of AIG. He declined to comment for this article.

Goldman Sachs is the most prominent of several multibillion dollar siphons suckling the US Treasury.

At the time the New York Fed was run by a genius called Tim Geithner, who has since become Obama's Treasury Secretary.

Unless we investigate and prosecute, we are also guilty.

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