Geithner Can't Say If Taxpayers Will Recoup AIG Bailout

It's unclear whether taxpayers will get back the $182 billion in government bailout funds given so far to troubled insurance giant AIG, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner implied this morning.

In questions following his speech to the Economic Club of Washington (which you can read here), Geithner was asked if taxpayers will recoup the money given to AIG.

Geithner called AIG an "extraordinary challenge," but said that the government-installed managers were working hard to "help improve the odds that the taxpayer is repaid," he said, according to the Associated Press.

Geithner said the economic crisis that started in the U.S. and has spread to the rest of the world could cost the globe $4 billion in lost production this year alone.

"Never before in modern times has so much of the world been simultaneously hit by a confluence of economic and financial turmoil such as we are now living through," Geithner said, according to the AP.

-- Frank Ahrens
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