AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

[rjwjr]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090315/aig_bonuses.html

You can't make this stuff up. AIG is paying-out $165,000,000 in management bonuses because they claim to be legally liable. THE MANAGEMENT TEAM RAN THE F&^%$%&NG COMPANY INTO THE GROUND!

How much longer must we stand for this idiocy, this incompetence, this theft!

Geithner really put the screws to them though, huh?! He asked if they'd please tone it down a little in 2009. Chairman Liddy said he'd try to chop 30% off for 2009. That means another $100,000,000+ in bonuses for a company that has been ruined and is on life support....WITH OUR MONEY! Thanks, Timmy, for being such a strict guardian of our tax dollars.

I can't tell if the entire political and FIRE leadership is that criminal or that incompetent. Probably both. We need a Constitutional amendement that you can NOT hold public office unless you have SUCCESSFULLY run a private company for at least 5 years. These so-called leaders need a big dose of reality...and a big boot up their asses.

I'm investing in a pitchfork manufacturer. Jeez, I'm steamed about this news. How about you?

[Olduvai]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

The same in Holland,
ING up to it's ears in government funding and still playing father Christmas for themselves. Due to falling stock values net woth approx 40 billion which is also the amount of government funding currently involved.
Do we need a revolution to stop this idiocy ?
Our children and grandchildren will pay the piper.

[Sharky]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

Jeez, I'm steamed about this news. How about you?

Why are you surprised? They're just doing the same things they've always done.

Where do you think the rest of the bailout money went? Hint: it didn't stay at AIG.

[Shakespear]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

They are high maintenance managerial class which needs this money to live the way they like to live. Otherwise they would not stay. Fine, it is a good time to test that today.

On the News a reporter was in New York to have a look what has changed with the high life execs. Nothing. The financial firms still have black limos making block long lines and compensation is a hushed subject. :mad:

[goadam1]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

Right next to that article in the paper is one about taxing health care benefits. Why bother earning an relatively honest living?

[we_are_toast]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

This is making too many headlines in the mainstream press, the administration or congress will be forced to take some action. This story isn't over yet.

[cjppjc]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

This is making too many headlines in the mainstream press, the administration or congress will be forced to take some action. This story isn't over yet.

Absolutly. Story is not over. AIG should reneg on the bonuses. Let the execs. take them to court. Move up the trial date. Live coverage at the court house.

[kelton56]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

AIG should reneg on the bonuses. Let the execs. take them to court. Move up the trial date. Live coverage at the court house.

Liddy saying 'the lawyers told us our hands are tied" is bull. This is the chief problem/fallout from not bankrupting AIG in the first place. Then all contracts could have been voided and renegotiated, just as the automakers threatened the UAW recently.

But no, in white collar world, the now-government-sanctioned looting continues and will continue until...I don't know.

Maybe reneging on the contracts and let the execs sue would be entertaining TV.

Now Fannie and Freddie will be emboldened to make big retention awards and bonuses also, as well as the auto companies when their execs line up.

When you pay a corporate executive a $1 million bonus from taxpayer money borrowed from China, it's referred to as a contractual obligation. But if you give 1,000 lower income people a "tax rebate" of $1,000 each with money borrowed from China, it's called welfare or socialism.

The end is nigh...

[GRG55]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

Here is the real AIG scandal. No surprise that Hank Paulson's old employer, Goldman Sachs, was the largest single beneficiary. The politicians are hoping and praying that the bonus issue keeps the public's attention; gawd forbid that the US taxpayer hear about this [isn't that why AIG released it on a Sunday and why it broke in a paper on the other side of the Atlantic?]

From this morning's FT:

AIG publishes counterparty list

By Julie MacIntosh in New York and Alan Beattie in Washington
Published: March 15 2009 23:25 | Last updated: March 15 2009 23:25

AIG caved in to political pressure Sunday and released a list of some of the financial counterparties that benefited from its $160bn US government rescue, including some of Europe’s largest banks...

...AIG has sold hundreds of billions of dollars of credit insurance through AIG Financial Products – the unit that contributed most heavily to the company’s near-collapse in September.

The insurer, which is now attempting to unwind that financial exposure, issued details Sunday on some of the payments it had made to counterparties using emergency government loans.

AIG paid out $22.4bn of collateral related to credit default swaps, $27.1bn to help cancel swaps and another $43.7bn to satisfy the obligations of its securities lending operation. The payments were made between September 16 and the end of last year.

Goldman Sachs, which has also accepted US government support, received payments worth $12.9bn. Three European banks – France’s Société Générale, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and the UK’s Barclays – were paid the next-largest amounts. SocGen received $11.9bn; Deutsche $11.8bn; and Barclays $7.9bn.

Many European banks used AIG’s credit insurance to keep from having to hold capital against their long-term securities holdings. Wall Street banks also used swaps to hedge their subprime mortgage-backed securities portfolios...

More...straight from the horse's mouth [pdf from the AIG website with all the gory details].

[Slimprofits]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

Here is the real AIG scandal. No surprise that Hank Paulson's old employer, Goldman Sachs, was the largest single beneficiary. The politicians are hoping and praying that the bonus issue keeps the public's attention; gawd forbid that the US taxpayer hear about this [isn't that why AIG released it on a Sunday and why it broke in a paper on the other side of the Atlantic?]

I've always thought the really big stories that were hopefully ignored were revealed near the close of business on Friday.

This story is front page news in the Monday print editions of the NY Times, the Washington Post.

On the other hand - Foxnews.com features on the frontpage a headline that focuses on the bonuses. The article mentions the $30 billion, but none of the counterparties. However a link is provided to another page on which the AIG press release is embedded. There is no direct reference to Goldman Sachs, the European banks or the municipalities by name on this website.


Put that in your bullhorn or the kazoo if you prefer and smoke it. ;)

[Shakespear]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

Nice find, I would have missed this one completely.

Thus the tax payer is bailing out foreign banks :rolleyes:

[don]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

I think you are dead right. $165M in bonuses draws all the heat. $160B in unfettered public funds goes relatively unscathed as to how and to whom it was doled out. A public airing of tranches? Who wins and who loses? And the whys? Forget about it.

[due_indigence]

Gads! Foreign banks were paid too. Isn't that why they call it an International Banking Cartel? You say France the UK and Germany. They say me, myself and I. Bankers without borders.

[bpr]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

Seriously, the bonuses literally represent 1/1000th of the looting going on here, but that's all the politicians can talk about. Even Bloomberg merges the stories of the counterparties and the bonuses.

One interesting quote:

“Goldman Sachs would have been unaffected by the failure of AIG,” said Michael DuVally, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs in New York.

Hmm, so, the company would have been unaffected by AIG's failure and the cancellation of contracts, thereby not receiving $12 billion of taxpayer money? Then they should give it back, no?

Also, if GS would've been unaffected without the AIG money, then exactly what is "the abyss," everyone was talking about? I thought it was the domino affect, you know, global banking collapse, accounts locked, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

unaffected?

[GRG55]

Re: AIG Paying $165 Million in Bonuses

Seriously, the bonuses literally represent 1/1000th of the looting going on here, but that's all the politicians can talk about. Even Bloomberg merges the stories of the counterparties and the bonuses.

One interesting quote:



Hmm, so, the company would have been unaffected by AIG's failure and the cancellation of contracts, thereby not receiving $12 billion of taxpayer money? Then they should give it back, no?

Also, if GS would've been unaffected without the AIG money, then exactly what is "the abyss," everyone was talking about? I thought it was the domino affect, you know, global banking collapse, accounts locked, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

unaffected?

There's some potential that maybe this one won't "go away". iTulip member Jesse has some pretty blunt words on his blog:

AIG: A Scandal of Epic Proportion

"Goldman Sachs had said in the past that its exposure to A.I.G.’s financial trouble was 'immaterial'."

Well, it appears it was immaterial because they had set things up so they could not lose.

It seems fairly obviously that a relatively small department within AIG, the Financial Products division, was operating under the regulatory radar and was used as a patsy by a number of the Wall Street banks, who had no worries about losses because of their power to obtain the US government as a backstop to losses.

This is a scandal of epic proportion. 'Outrage' barely manages to express the appropriate reaction.

Obama is an educated, intelligent President, and can hardly retreat behind the clueless buffoon defense used by so many CEO's and officials. He is directly responsible for this outcome now.

The honeymoon for the Obama Administration is over. Geithner and Summers should resign over their handling of AIG, and there should be no question that the Fed has no business regulating anything more complex than a checking account.

The difficulty with which we are faced is that despite their mugging for the camera and emotional words the Republicans are owned body and soul by Wall Street and Big Business.

Getting behind a third party for president is symbolic but ineffective. Giving a significant number of congressional seats to a third party will send a chilling and practical message to both the President and the Congress that enough is enough...