The World Shares the Burden of AIG's Survival

AIG (AIG - commentary - Cramer's Take) is not an American problem. Beginning in 2005, AIG began to offer billions of dollars in what it thought were low-risk wraparound loans of securities issued by European banks to keep the banks in compliance with European regulators. No one is talking about this, but that's what they said over and over again at their Dec. 6 analyst meeting. I would have to believe that Royal Bank, HBOS and UBS all have substantial exposure here. We will have immediate credit downgrades if AIG is allowed to fail, and I think you could see one of these banks have a real run on its stock a la Lehman Brothers (LEH - commentary - Cramer's Take). They have to know that over there. Don't they?

China has gigantic exposure to AIG, and who the heck knows who is on the hook there? Aren't they worried?

We need a bailout of this institution because it is way too big to fail. If we had a president who was engaged, what would happen right now is he would be calling every sovereign fund and minister of finance to PASS THE HAT and get the money in to bridge AIG through this period.

It is that important.

I do not believe our president is sophisticated enough to know this, and I don't believe the Federal Reserve is either. Judging from Hank Paulson's comments yesterday, he may not know either.

It is not too late for our government officials to make these calls.

But they don't seem to get it.

What else is new?

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.

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