AIG can suck an egg

Dear America:

In their worst-ever advertising and self-promotion campaign, AIG has thrown rotten eggs at your homes, and laughed in your face while taking your money (all of it) because it was supposedly necessary to take YOUR money to clean up the egg mess. While busy not really cleaning up their mess... and repeatedly insisting that they need more money... AIG decided to use some of these money on hefty million dollar bonuses to be payed to the very AIG employees who did the egg-slinging.

Yes: they used your money your children's money, and your children's children's money to pay them. Some of these employees aren't even working for AIG anymore. It just gets better and better.

AIG has advertised in no uncertain terms that we are never to trust them again. We should never EVER give them any of our business, ever, while laughing hysterically at their TV commercials, until they finally die a quiet death or we take them over (for real -- we get the stock and can fire every one of these jackels. Every single one, from top to bottom. Clean house.)

Are we angry? You have no idea. Ask Iceland how they feel -- their entire country went bankrupt because of this domino effect, all started by AIG, the company 'too big to fail' (and too irresponsible to remain in business.)

(CNN) -- AIG paid 73 employees bonuses of more than $1 million, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo informed Congress in a letter Tuesday.
Congress is looking at ways to deal with the outrage surrounding AIG's controversial bonuses.

Cuomo also wrote that 11 of the employees no longer work for the company. The largest bonus paid was $6.4 million and seven more people received more than $4 million each.

"Until we obtain the names of these individuals, it is impossible to determine when and why they left the firm and how it is that they received these payments," Cuomo wrote to a congressional committee.

AIG has been under fire for awarding seven-figure bonuses to employees while being kept afloat by more than $170 billion from the U.S. government's financial bailout.

AIG handing out executive bonuses

This is unbelievable.

A.I.G. Planning $100 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and PETER BAKER
Published: March 14, 2009

WASHINGTON — Despite being bailed out with more than $170 billion from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International Group is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

An official in the Obama administration said Saturday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had called A.I.G.’s government-appointed chairman, Edward M. Liddy, on Wednesday and asked that the company renegotiate the bonuses.

Administration officials said they had managed to reduce some of the bonuses but had allowed most of them to go forward after the company’s chief executive said A.I.G. was contractually obligated to pay them.

In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Mr. Liddy wrote: “Needless to say, in the current circumstances, I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them.”

Distasteful?

Perhaps if these people had been FIRED, they would not be up for bonuses. What kind of business doesn't fire the employees who screw up on such a massive scale -- but instead gives them bonuses?

And what kind of suckers are we that we keep giving AIG money?

My husband isn't even getting a cost of living pay increase this year, let alone a bonus. He didn't break any laws, take advantage of anyone, do anything unethical or illegal, and he didn't destroy his company. Think the good guys don't finish last in this country?

Jon Stewart & Joe Nocera explain the scam

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AIG parties on the taxpayer tab

From CNN:

Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown.

AIG sent its executives to the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles, California, even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy.

The resort tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees, according to invoices the resort turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

I'm guessing that the majority of American citizens aren't the slightest bit surprised. You just took our tax money to bail out these creeps - against our will - and you express surprise that they behave in exactly the same fashion that they've always behaved?

I read the news today - oh boy (Thursday edition)

Alternate heading: Republicans recall what it once meant to be Republican

For all of corporate media's blundering, sensationalism, bias and under-reporting; these little news blurbs that land in my inbasket each morning are a useful weather vane. I can grasp the general tone - the ambiance of the day - without reading any further.

For example, this CNN Quicknews alert:

AIG BAILOUT UPSETS REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS

Key Republicans on Capitol Hill blasted the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve on Wednesday for orchestrating an $85 billion bailout of insurance giant American International Group, and the White House for not informing them of the plan.

FULL STORY...

Key Republicans. Hmm. I'm actually curious this time, so I decide to take the bait.

Which 'key' Republicans actually remember that their traditional party platform doesn't include... well, bailouts? (The concept of 'small government' used to be a party platform cornerstone before the Neocons invaded.) And how interesting that they are willing to challenge their GOP-in-Chief in a public forum rather than a back room.

Key lawmaker number one comes to bat:

The criticism came a day after lawmakers were surprised by the news that taxpayers would again be called on to shore up a member of the struggling financial sector.

"Once again the Fed has put the taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars to bail out an institution that put greed ahead of responsibility and used their good name to take risky bets that did not pay off," said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Kentucky, a member of the Senate Banking Committee.

Kentucky weighs in: 'Heartland America,' old-school Republican values (similar to Indiana.)

Next at bat, key lawmaker number two:

A spokesman for Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the committee, said the senator "profoundly disagrees with the decision to use taxpayer dollars to bail out a private company" and is upset the government has sent an inconsistent message to the markets by bailing out AIG after it just refused to save investment bank Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy.

"The American taxpayer should not be asked to unwillingly assume the inordinate risks that financial experts knowingly undertook, particularly when taxpayer exposure is increased by the ad hoc manner in which these bailouts have been engineered," said Shelby's aide, Jonathan Graffeo.

Alabama weighs in. Its going to be a lot harder to avoid raising taxes when we are bailing out bloated, greedy corporations right and left. Another old school and core Republican value: never raise taxes.

Key lawmaker three comes to bat:

Republican Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri complained about not getting a heads-up about the bailout and said House Republicans are struggling to "understand a coherent strategy" about which firms get rescued and which ones don't.

Hmm. Appears - at least from the story - that Missouri is more concerned about not receiving a heads-up in advance. Well I can understand that, especially in an election year.

Key lawmaker number four comes to the plate:

Rep. Adam Putman of Florida, the third-ranking Republican in the House, said the cost is "unnerving" and called on the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve "to dispatch an envoy to the Hill to bring members of Congress up to speed."

"The communications lines are not operating efficiently," he said.

Florida - like Missouri - is more concerned about the fact that he wasn't warned in advance.

And yes... the cost is quite unnerving. When you add up all of the costs flying out of our Treasury (wars, storms, bailouts) it is very, very unnerving. And we haven't even mentioned our staggering national debt and crumbling infrastructure.

Alas... so many things going wrong - and in an election year! Chickens finally came home to roost?

I read the news today - oh boy (Wednesday edition)

Crash, crash crash. Wall Street fall down, go boom?

From the AP: Stocks tumble another 400 points after government bailout of AIG.

By TIM PARADIS – 6 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street plunged again in a crisis of confidence Wednesday as anxieties about the financial system still ran high after the government's bailout of insurer American International Group Inc. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 400 points, and investors seeking the safety of hard assets and government debt sent gold, oil and short-term Treasurys soaring.

The Federal Reserve is giving a two-year, $85 billion loan to AIG in exchange for a nearly 80 percent stake in the company after it lost billions in the risky business of insuring against bond defaults. Wall Street had feared that the conglomerate, which has its tentacles in various financial services industries around the world, would follow the investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. into bankruptcy. The ramifications of the world's largest insurer going under likely would have far surpassed the demise of Lehman.

"People are scared to death," said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist for PNC Wealth Management. "Who would have imagined that AIG would have gotten into this position?"

Read more...

Right. Who'd a thunk it?

By the way, I was watching a show I had taped earlier in the week, and was darkly amused to see a commercial for AIG. They were asking me to switch from my insurance company and listing all of the reasons why they can offer me 'better protection.'

In light of yesterday's developments, their assurances were hilarious. With whom would we file a claim - the Federal Reserve?

Crash crash crash. More tomorrow.