House of Cards Insurance (HCI), ShellGame Inc. (SGI), and Ponzi Scheme Assurance Company (PSAC) are three lesser known companies of the 4,000 business units that make up American International Group (AIG). Apparently, whenever the greedy geniuses at one AIG unit needed to find financial guarantees for whatever brilliant business deal they were making, they just went to another AIG unit to cover their liabilities. Unfortunately, the AIG units that provided those guarantees are similarly leveraged with other AIG units. This might not be a problem if the parent company had all the money in the world to cover the debts of its spoiled children. But we all know that isn't the case. If it was then they could pay back $182 billion to taxpayers. As it is, even with the enormous federal bailout, it appears a light breeze could structurally damage their house of cards.

(Crossposted at MyPorch.)