AIG discovers “risk” (and Jeremiah 17:9)

A blog entry  concerning the fall of AIG from TIME’s “Curious Capitalist” (click here) caught my eye this evening. From an actuarial perspective, it is amazing to me how such thinking could have occurred. If you see massive profits being made in a model with seemingly no risk worth accounting for, there is an error somewhere — either in your work or in your reasoning.

On the other hand, from a spiritual perspective it sadly makes perfect sense: Take some human greed, mix in a healthy dose of Jeremiah 17:9, and voilà you have backed an AIG cake.

2 Timothy 3:2 mentions that the end times will be chock-full of such things.  Also, the following comes to mind:

His watchmen are blind,
They are all ignorant;
They are all dumb dogs,
They cannot bark;
Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.

Yes, they are greedy dogs
Which never have enough.
And they are shepherds
Who cannot understand;
They all look to their own way,
Every one for his own gain,
From his own territory.

“Come,” one says, “I will bring wine,
And we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink;
Tomorrow will be as today,
And much more abundant.”

Isaiah 56:10-12