Buying Time before the Funeral

AIG Said To Receive Access to More Cash Insurer Expected to Report Record Loss

By Brady Dennis Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 2, 2009; A01

American International Group will gain access to $30 billion more in taxpayer money as part of another restructuring of its federal bailout, sources involved in the negotiations said yesterday. It marks the fourth time the government has stepped in to help the ailing insurance giant since September.

The reworked plan is aimed in part at helping AIG avert a potential disaster as it announces the biggest quarterly corporate loss in history this morning -- more than $60 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the results had not yet been released. The government reaction is rooted in the idea that a collapse of AIG, which has ties to nearly every major financial institution in the world, would endanger the entire economy.

Credit-rating agencies would have likely downgraded AIG in…