US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has defended his government's decision to spend $180bn rescuing the troubled insurer AIG.
This is the company which provided insurance against the failure of the complex toxic investments that are at the very heart of the global credit crunch.
But a growing number of politicians are questioning why AIG has now received four separate state bailouts - with taxpayers footing the bill - with no sign of an end to its losses.
Testifying before the Senate finance committee this week, Mr Geithner defended the US government's action.
Listen Listen to Timothy Geithner (14 secs)
Taxpayers' resistance The greatest corporate failure in American history
Senator Richard Shelby
The greatest corporate failure in American history
Senator Richard Shelby
Federal Reserve vice-chairman Donald Kohn told lawmakers that "we need AIG to be stable". and warned that foreign investors' desire to deal with US firms might have waned if the US government had not bailed out AIG.
AIG, which is in effect owned by the government, on Monday reported a $61.7bn quarterly loss. The figure, for the last three months of 2008, is the biggest quarterly loss in US history.
But it is getting increasingly hard to convince a sceptical public, and sceptical politicians, that American taxpayers' money is being well spent, as the BBC's James Gordon in New York has been discovering.
Listen Listen to James Gordon (3 mins 2 secs)
Political concerns
US politicians of all stripes have expressed anger at the failures at AIG
The prospect of the US government spending further billions trying to breathe new life into financial institutions like AIG worries politicians on Capitol Hill on both sides of the political divide.
Republican Senator Richard Shelby called the insurer "the greatest corporate failure in American history".
Senate finance committee chairman Christopher Dodd said that the lack of transparency and accountability in the government's management of the AIG bail-out was "rather stunning".
Listen Listen to Christopher Dodd (19 secs)
Scott Polakoff, acting director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, said that there was the need to create a systemic risk regulator to monitor companies as large and complex as AIG, as a "multitude of regulators" had missed the warning signs at AIG.
Listen Listen to Scott Polakoff (26 secs)
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden told the BBC's Mike Johnson about his concerns.
Listen Listen to Senator Ron Wyden (2 mins 31 sec)
First broadcast on World Business News on 6 and 4 March 2009
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