Fed Calls Emergency Consultants to Treat AIG, Stricken Markets

[Joanne98]

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Every Sunday night, New York bankruptcy lawyer Marshall Huebner spends a 13-hour shift on call as an emergency medical technician. His day job involves work on another sort of rescue: The government’s $152.5 billion bailout of American International Group Inc.

“There’s a stronger parallel than you would think,” Huebner, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, said in an interview. Helping resuscitate the insurance giant takes “a lot of the same qualities that I think stand you in very good stead with emergency medicine -- the ability to remain calm in almost any situation, and the ability to assess, triage and treat, even in a crisis.”

Huebner, 41, is part of an army of outside lawyers and consultants the Federal Reserve has called upon to help fight the biggest financial crisis in 70 years. While the central bank won’t disclose how much work it has outsourced, Fed watchers say the institution is relying on Wall Street experts to an unprecedented extent, seeking help from insiders in the very industries where the turmoil originated.

“I don’t think the Fed has seen anything like this,” former New York Fed general counsel and AIG executive Ernest Patrikis said in an interview. “AIG just got so complex in terms of private corporate matters that you just need that outside expertise.” Patrikis is now with the law firm of White & Case in New York.

In addition to hiring consultants, the Fed and the Treasury have retained Wall Street firms to help manage more than $2 trillion in bailout and emergency-loan programs.

Pimco, JPMorgan

Pacific Investment Management Co. runs a $259 billion program to backstop the commercial-paper market. BlackRock Inc., Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Pimco and Wellington Management Co. are managing the Fed’s purchases of up to $500 billion of mortgage-backed securities. JPMorgan Chase & Co. oversees a separate program under which the Fed may lend up to $540 billion to support money market mutual funds.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a.yAFsg.Y5kU&refer=home

[LeftHandPath]

1. A den of frigg'n theives...

Jesus H Christmas tree.

Why not get Bernie Madoff to help out as well?

The corruption runs deep, like the plague. We're going to need lots of lances for these boils.