A Voice Crying from the Wilderness

This is Axel again.  I have heard a few questions asking how we are being affected by what is happening with AIG.  I can tell you what I know:

1.  AIG is a huge parent company.  By itself it doesn't sell anything.  It is just a holding company.

2.  There are three main divisions.  Life Insurance, General Insurance and Financial Services.  There are something like 2000 companies in these three divisions.

3.  All of these credit default issues are happening in the Financial Services side.  NOT the Life Insurance side.  Hence the Government loan which means AIG doesn't have to touch the money from the insurance companies to make good on the Financial Services side.

4.  Under the Life companies, we have three major ones; AIA which is in Asia, American General in the US and Canada and ALICO (mine) in Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Japan. 

5.  ALL of our life companies are registered as separate companies in their countries where they do business.  ALICO Nepal, where I am the General Manager, is its own company which not only meets all of our regulatory requirements, we are also the number one Life Insurance company in Nepal.  I have been meeting with my staff (about 150), agents (about 4000) and Nepali government divisions and all seems well in their minds.

6.  Not too many people here have made any connection that ALICO is AIG, so we don't really anticipate any panic issues with that.

7  The new AIG CEO is from a life insurance background, which is only good for us.  He understands what we need, how we work and it is seen as a great move within our division.

8.  IF we get split off or sold, I don't think that would be the end of the world for the company or my job by default.  ALICO is making lots of money, has an excellent name in the markets we work in and regardless of where we wind up, it isn't going to change our day to day operations which are to serve our customers and find new ones.  I just had my Regional President come visit me and I feel he was mostly satisfied with what I am doing and gave me some great ideas on how we can get more business in other ways, which we are doing. 

9.  Was I worried?  Definitely.  Not just for AIG but for the world.  Had AIG gone under I think we would have seen huge panic and even more financial problems the world over.  We are all connected now.  Problems in one area will affect other areas quicker and with more impact than ever before.   That is good and bad and we are seeing the downside of that now.

10.  One crying from the wilderness.  Through all this I kept remembering  a scripture from our Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 4:34.  It talks about not putting trust in the arm of flesh.  I honestly think all of these issues are God's wake up call to stop putting all our faith in money, systems, governments etc.  That in the end nothing can save mankind but doing good deeds to each other, being honest, identifying mistakes, owning up to them and changing for the better.  While I think the world's financial situations will recover for this for a time, I hope the 'voice calling from the wilderness' isn't unheard.   I am glad we are living in Nepal where nothing seems to work.  It has been a good teacher that electricity, gas, and even getting food is not something that is a sure bet. 

If AIG can fail, anything can fail.  Reliance on anything other than God is misplaced trust in my opinion.  Reliance on God will give a sense of security that no document written in ink could ever produce.  

So in short, as of today, I am not losing my job and we are working hard here as business as usual.  But I heard the voice loud and clear and hope others did too.