Ambac
Finance and insurance companyWikipedia
5
MENTIONS
3
EPISODES
3
PODCASTS
Search complete. 5 mentions across 3 episodes found for "Ambac".
Sep 14, 2026
5. Insurance: The Archetypal Risk Management Institution
R
75:04Robert ShillerHOST
In order to make their bonds saleable to the general public, city and state governments go or any regional local governments go to the municipal bond insurer companies.
R
75:19Robert ShillerHOST
They have names, the big ones are MBIA, AMBAC, FGIC.
R
75:28Robert ShillerHOST
That's not FDIC, it's not the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, it's FGIC and there are others as well.
R
75:37Robert ShillerHOST
What these do is they insure the investor against the municipality failing to pay on the bond.
R
76:39Robert ShillerHOST
They're doing just fine, but people are noticing that their portfolios are going down.
R
76:47Robert ShillerHOST
Their surplus, statutory surplus, is going down and so we're starting to worry about these companies.
R
76:56Robert ShillerHOST
Notably, it was January 18, a rating agency, Fitch, lowered AMBAC rated.
R
77:15Robert ShillerHOST
That was a big news story.
40 Years in ABS with John Costa: Monolines, Timeshare, Extendable ABCP & Bank Charters
J
4:29John CostaGUEST
And, and, um, now I, I don't recall exactly, but I think some, uh, some of the Hutton folks at the time, senior, senior officers at Hutton, uh, had a, had a role in the establishment of, uh, FSA when that was starting, uh-
W
4:48William BlackHOST
FSA being, like AMBAC, MBIA, and then FSA.
W
4:50William BlackHOST
These are all kind of names that-
J
4:52John CostaGUEST
Monolines
Building a Global Sports Empire
J
11:08Jerry Jones Jr.GUEST
But it was, and the good news was we had gotten ahead of how we were selling the stadium and we had a lot of what I'd call contractually obligated income relative to suites and relative to sponsorship, relative to seat options or PSLs as some teams call them.
J
11:24Jerry Jones Jr.GUEST
We had those contracts locked up and our entire financing package was done through auction rate securities with people like AMBAC.
J
11:34Jerry Jones Jr.GUEST
And of course, when that recession hit, those were the first things that locked up.
J
11:38Jerry Jones Jr.GUEST
They literally locked up and our financing was gone.