I know it will never happen now, but the report was apparently out prior to he going before the Senate Banking Committee. I don't know what was in the Bill after the changes were made, but one Congresswoman voiced her concern over shortselling, and the lack of oversight, and the lack of regulations that caused some of this. I believe this may be some of the problem, those who voted against it may just be stalling, and some others just don't like it.
Its not like there weren't red flags flying high, and blowing in the wind around every sector in the market regarding this and the thousands of complaints voiced to the SEC that largely went ignored forever, it took Cox being put on the spot to bring this issue up, and he clamping down for 10 days on shortselling prior to his appearance. Where was he at all the time this business was occurring, and no doubt will reoccur if changes aren't made.
The Senate Banking Committee was "finally" warned about these CDS's by Cox, and in spite of all this they were seeking approval of this plan, but don't have any plans to do anything about it till January 09 while removing the ban of shortselling on Oct 2.
Wouldn't you think they would first fix the not the leak, but the crack in the dike before opening up the flood gate?.......to me this doesn't make any sense.
The New York Times had said Goldman was AIG (nyse: AIG - news - people )'s largest trading partner, citing six people close to the insurer. It also said a collapse of AIG threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman, citing several of the people.
The report contrasted with a Sept 16 comment by David Viniar, Goldman's chief financial officer, on a conference call with analysts that Goldman's exposure to AIG was immaterial.
Hours after he spoke, the U.S. government announced an $85 billion bailout of AIG, which had suffered spiraling losses on credit default swaps, a type of insurance contract whose value is tied to securities such as mortgages and corporate debt. A failure of AIG might have convulsed the global financial system because many companies do business with it.