Welcome to Zigas and Associates, LLC

Zigas and Associates LLC helps organizations develop sound strategies, build effective leadership, and create innovation that produces results.  Zigas and Associates LLC works with both for profit and nonprofit organizations.  The firm brings to its engagements a robust understanding of organizational growth and development; a deep expertise in how policy and practice interact to create effective results; a passionate commitment to effective strategies that improve peoples’ lives; and a practical, market oriented approach to social ventures.  Read more >>  

About Barry Zigas

With more than 30 years of leadership in diverse roles in housing, community and economic development, Barry Zigas has a unique blend of for-profit and nonprofit experience.  This includes leading organizations and workgroups ranging from more than 200 national and regional staff members as a Senior Vice President at Fannie Mae to leadership of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, with 16 staff.  He has effectively articulated and promoted innovative public policy solutions to pressing social concerns.  Read more >>

Zigas Blog

When the mortgage crisis first started unfolding, I remember reading in a number of articles how Goldman Sachs had been more clever than other firms in avoiding heavy exposures to subprime mortgage bonds.  In fact, at least one article pointed out that Goldman had been betting against the subprime securities market for its own accounts, even while still trading the bonds for customers.  

When Goldman’s counterparty AIG faltered, the U.S. Government stepped in to back up its insurance contracts on bonds.  The firm itself had traded directly on the parent company’s legendary AAA status.  But it turned out they did not have nearly enough capital to cover all the bets they’d made.  Like a bookie who’s taken the wrong side of too many “sure things,” AIG was busted and American taxpayers ended up having to bail them out.  Among the biggest winners in this game?  Goldman Sachs, who received an estimated $12 billion in taxpayer money funnelled through AIG to make good on their contracts. 

Today’s New York Times extends the debate about Goldman’s role in the market’s unraveling, outlining in a lengthy article how Goldman resisted AIG’s attempts to pay less than full value on the contracts, arguing that the securities they’d guaranteed were worth more than Goldman claimed.

Perhaps the commission headed by former California Treasurer Philip Angelides will get to the bottom of who did what to whom.  For now, it seems safe to say that the behavior that seemed so smart two years ago may prove to have been too smart by half when re-examined in the wake of the worst financial crisis in more than 70 years.