When you live on cash, you understand the limits of the world around which you navigate each day. Credit leads into a desert with invisible boundaries.
If we are willing to act violently in pursuit of a peripheral interest, everyone can be certain that, when a vital interest is at stake, we will be still more violent. 'Credibility' is defined as the willingness to kill a lot of people now for a not very good cause to assure the world that we'll kill a lot more people if we can find a better one.
I am assured at any rate Man's practically inexterminate. Someday I must go into that. There's always been an Ararat Where someone someone else begat To start the world all over at.
AIG would be doing fine today. It was one of the ten largest companies in the United States in terms of market value, over 200 billion, the most respected insurer and everything in the world.