Clear Rock has several buyers that are seeking to squeeze in a deal to buy an insurance agency before the Holidays.  

Now that the election is over, and it seems more likely that capital gains taxes will rise in the next year, it is a great time to take advantage of not only getting a deal done, but  also allocating a portion of the price at the historically low 15% long term capital gains

Last night the Fed announced another $38bn infusion into AIG. Curious, of course, is how they decided to word the transaction: the Fed is "borrowing" certain assets in return for "cash collateral." While a cash collateral is a perfectly legitimate transaction structure, we believe that this is just a cumbersome attempt to obscure a second recapitalization of AIG in under 2 weeks.

Granted,

In yet another scary missive about the state of AIG, the New York Times writes today that AIG had already drawn down $61b of their newly minted $85b line of credit. In concert, S&P has issued yet another warning on AIG.

All this calls into question whether the Fed's emergency intervention with AIG will be the end of the bail-out, or rather somewhere around half-time.

Of interest for Agencies,

Brian  Burke will be hosting a conference call today at 2 p.m. to discuss the AIG situation and how it is likely to impact agency owners.  

Conference Dial-in Number: (269) 320-8100
Access Code:

Didn't think that the Fed could simply starting making loans, did you? Neither did we.

Fortunately we were not the only ones curious - hence we didn't have to look to far. Apparently the Federal Reserve Act of 1933 (Section 13(3) to be precise) allows the Fed to make direct loans under "exigent circumstances."

Seems that this week's developments could fall under the rubric of "exigent."