After Treasury Secretary Paulson’s insistence that there would be no more “bailouts” for Wall Street, the September 16 announcement that “the Federal Reserve Board with the full support of the Treasury Department, authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend up to $85 billion to American International Group (AIG),” reflects the acceleration of the Harvest Moon panic running like a contagion through Wall Street. The Sun and Saturn in Virgo reflect the fear and pessimism (Saturn) in the speculative markets (Sun). These energies oppose the Moon and Uranus in Pisces. Emotions are running high (Full Moon) from the shocks and surprises (Uranus) of how rapidly the financial system is unraveling. Uranus is known as the “cosmic alarm clock,” serving as a wakeup call for what is not working in the system (Saturn) and needs to be changed. As AIG’s situation demonstrates, if you postpone dealing with the problem by hitting the snooze button, a need for $40 billion in short term financing last weekend ballooned to $85 billion by Tuesday evening.

And these energies are being challenged by Pluto in its last days of lend and spend freely Sagittarius. Pluto rules debt and insurance, and private financial transactions; what is being called the “shadow financial system.” AIG personifies Pluto’s powerful energies as the global insurance giant’s business ran into trouble when AIG had to start collateralizing the credit default swaps (CDS) it sold. CDSs are private, unregulated insurance contracts that AIG and other financial institutions sold in the event the borrower defaults. This derivative product is also used as a hedge against risk and to bet on the health of other companies. Its estimated AIG has written CDSs on $446 billion in credit assets (mortgage securities, corporate loans, and complex structured products). The occult nature (lack of transparency) of these debt instruments (Pluto) t is creating the fear (Saturn) that is sending shockwaves (Uranus in Pisces) through the financial system.

AIG approached Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Timothy Geithner for help in obtaining a bridge loan to meet its capital requirements while AIG raised cash from selling assets, after its plummeting stock price triggered a credit rating downgrade on Monday. Instead of a bridge loan or government warrants at a high rate of interest and/or a loan origination fee of some kind, AIG got a high interest rate loan (around 11.5%) for the Fed to lend up to $85 billion for a 24-month term. AIG also got Paulson’s 79.9% solution.