Economists responsible for the AIG collapse faced no reputational consequences and gained advisory power

Evidence

Take another illustrious Harvard economist, Martin Feldstein. Among other ties to the key crisis institutions, he had been on the board of AIG for twenty-two years, only to conveniently resign from his duties on June 30, 2009. He had also been chair of its finance committee and risk management, and therefore was formally directly responsible for the disastrous AIG Financial Products division, whose credit default swaps and other unsustainable derivatives brought down the company. For his services there he accrued more than $6 million, and has apparently never suffered any ostracism for saddling the Treasury with a shell of a remnant of an insurance behemoth that is still hemorrhaging money. Indeed, none of this seemed an obstacle to President Obama appointing him to his Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board in 2009, and his Tax Policy task force thereafter. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 564

Categorization

• SEED: A disgraced-insider-gets-rewarded pattern that could anchor an essay on the revolving door between crisis finance and post-crisis policy appointments.
• QUESTION: Worth checking whether Feldstein’s AIG board service was publicly raised in his confirmation/advisory contexts and how he defended it.
• XREF: connects to: Economists who enabled the 2008 crisis emerged without any institutional consequences — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 438; The 2008 financial collapse produced no accountable wrongdoers and no industry reform — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1564; Economists involved in financial innovation disappear their own roles when narrating crises — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 571 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The 2008 financial collapse produced no accountable wrongdoers and no industry reform #corroborates (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1564
• The 2008 crisis killed none of the economic ideas that caused it #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 44
• Economists involved in financial innovation disappear their own roles when narrating crises #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 571