Sixteen years ago today, I was asked by The New York Times to explain what would happen if the insurance giant AIG were allowed to fail. This was immediately after Lehman Brothers collapsed. AIG was rescued & what I warned would be an “extinction-level-event” for markets was averted. I disagreed with the methodology used to bail out AIG & its counterparties - I preferred to see a blanket government guarantee of the type used last year to protect depositors at Silicon Valley Bank & other failed regional banks (at least we learned & applied some lessons from 2008). But the AIG bailout proved profitable & successful. Sixteen years later our large financial institutions are safer than they were in 2008 - less leveraged, more liquid, better capitalized. But the financial system itself is far more leveraged & fragile. The US & the rest of the world failed to learn & apply other important lessons from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008! We solved a debt crisis with trillions of dollars of debt that can & will never be repaid. They will be written off or inflated away (through higher prices or fiat currency depreciation) We are far too complacent about the problem & will pay a price for that in the years to come. Buy gold and save yourselves. Godspeed!