AIG's liabilities are still estimated to be in the order of $2 Trillion, give or take a few billion, let's wait and see how much wil be presented to the taxpayers to make good on these highly toxic contracts aimed at maximizing bonuses at NPV by gambling with other people's money. They must have bypassed their signatory limits by a mile.

The Nuremberg excuse "Ich habe es nicht Gewusst" in terms of the inherent risks is too easy and the lamentable mea culpa's equally. The same is valid for the regulators and people in charge of the policies and directives.

These insiders cannot pretend they weren't aware of these trillion dollar bets but decided to turn a blind eye on the mushrooming derivatives neutron bombs as if this could grow exponentially forever with only barely a relation to the underlying leveraged asset values.

Ask the mafia if they should be regulated or whether self regulation would be more appropriate and you would get an answer similar as to what Wall Street has given, with condonement of the regulators and people in charge. The more they can hide the better they can manipulate the markets with dark liquidity funds and off balance sheet derivative assets.

As people at the highest levels must have been deeply involved, and profited, it is unlikely that serious charges will be pressed as this would discredit the system. Play for e.g. being dumb or naive or oversights is not a crime.