From the 'No Shit' Department

No one could have predicted:

Despite the many options it had, the team led by current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner chose to bail out ailing insurer American International Group Inc. and its Wall Street counterparties to the eventual tune of more than $182 billion, a decision that continues to have a "poisonous effect on the marketplace," according to a new Congressional report.

[...]

Among the bailout watchdog's findings:

• Policymakers had several options to resolve the firm's troubles, rather than a "binary" choice of bailout or failure;
• Federal regulators could have acted earlier, potentially saving taxpayers from a $182 billion investment in the giant insurer;
• The government-led private-sector effort to save the firm primarily relied on just two financial firms and a small group of law firms rife with conflicts of interest;
• Policymakers involved in the rescue continue to change their public rationale for rescuing AIG with taxpayer cash, perhaps for political considerations;
• Even more foreign banks than previously disclosed were direct beneficiaries of the taxpayer bailout;
• It was "unlikely" a more muscular regulatory agency would have caught the insurer's problems given that the firm's own management didn't know what was going on;
• And despite the panel's mission of auditing how the government responded to its biggest intrusion in the financial markets since the Great Depression, some firms, including Goldman Sachs, which taxpayers bailed out with $10 billion in cash and nearly $21 billion in debt guarantees, continue to refuse to turn over key documents, the panel said in its report. Goldman faces a multitude of investigations regarding its subprime-era practices.

As if this much wasn't glaringly obvious when the AIG bailout was first discussed. When is an overnight decision to funnel $200 billion into a failing firm ever a good idea?

Also, I am not sure why the story says that Geithner bailed out AIG. Although I'm sure he would have done so had he been Treasury Secretary at the time, that decision was all Paulson.