tbm.thebigmoney.com - 3/17/2009
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Outraged at AIG? Take your spot in line. While you’re there, gawk at all of your esteemed company. First you’ll find both aisles of Congress—“This is an outrage,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will be repeating over and over again to Barney Frank, who will be murmuring about misbehavior and abuse of the system. Further ahead, you’ll find Ben Bernanke, the normally placid Fed chairman, reliving his two-time denunciation of AIG as having made “unconscionable bets” and ...
slate.com - 3/17/2009
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slate.com —
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but
this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at...
the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars? [ more ... ]
(more)
The real scandal at AIG is the not the bonuses. It's the ...
online.wsj.com - 3/18/2009
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online.wsj.com —
Some of the billions of dollars that the
U.S. government paid to bail out American International Group...
Inc. stand to benefit hedge funds that bet on a falling housing market, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The ...
(more)
Hedge Funds May Get AIG Cash
econbrowser.com - 3/18/2009
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econbrowser.com —
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (hat tip:
LA Times ) asserted that on Friday insurance company...
AIG, recipient so far of perhaps $170 billion in bailout assistance , distributed over $160 million in "retention payments to members of its ...
(more)
AIG outrage
Comments
Blog Reactions
Tuesday links: outrage fatigue
Abnormal Returns —
... The Feds purportedly “control” AIG. Should the Feds allow these payments to stand? (FT Alphaville)
How to legally get the AIG bonuses back. (Money & Co., Interfluidity)
Public anger aside, isn’t this debate over bonuses really all for show? (Marginal Revolution also The Big Money, Clusterstock, The Stash)
“Why did ...
Further reading
FT Alphaville —
Elsewhere on Thursday, - Outrageous AIG provokes outrage from outraged Americans. - The slow (but steady) death of merger arbitrage . - The Seinfeld stock rall. - Are democracy and capitalism incompatible? - Why people make market forecasts . - The “Decider” decides to write - about decisions, of course. - Vix at 40 , what it really means. - Being Gordon Brown means not having to say you’re sorry. - Behind Buffett’s big, fat silence on the ratings agencies . - A Cosean sign . - Charlie Rose ...
Related Content
AIG in Review
baselinescenario.com 3/2/2009 — Well, it’s done . AIG is getting another bailout.
I have to admit I don’t fully understand the ongoing AIG bailout saga, so I thought I would do a little research to try to figure out what is going on. I thought I would just look up all the term sheets, but I found it’s ...
AIG — There are Many Criminals Here
alephblog.com 3/20/2009 — It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar ( from twainquotes.com )
There are many upset over the bonuses paid to AIG employees, most notably politicians seeking ...
The Black Hole Gets Bigger: AIG Back for Yet Another Bailout
nakedcapitalism.com 11/8/2008 — The Financial Times reports that AIG is up to its old tricks, back again to the trough for more money. Christmas The Iceland credit default swaps settlement is coming soon, you know. The worst is that AIG is pretending to act as if this is a ...
"AIG Still Isn't Too Big to Fail"
economistsview.typepad.com 3/21/2009 — Lucian Bebchuk says AIG is not too big to fail:
AIG Still
Isn't Too Big to Fail, by Lucian Bebchuk, Commentary, WSJ : The AIG bailout
-- at $170 billion and rising -- may end up as the costliest rescue of a single
firm in history. There is ...
Why Bail Out AIG’s Creditors?
baselinescenario.com 3/20/2009 — Simon and I wrote on op-ed in the New York Times today, trying to debunk the idea that, as we put it, “A.I.G.’s traders are the people that we must depend on to save the United States economy.” The AIG bonus fiasco, as I’ve written earlier , has been particularly useful in ...
AIG Still Isn't Too Big to Fail
online.wsj.com 3/20/2009 — LUCIAN BEBCHUK The AIG bailout -- at $170 billion and rising -- may end up as the costliest rescue of a single firm in history. There is much debate about bonuses paid to AIG's executives. But there is far too little debate on the government's ...
AIG to Retrade Its Bailout Yet Again? (Banana Republic Watch)
nakedcapitalism.com 2/24/2009 — Sports fans, your humble blogger earnestly endeavors to keep up with the machinations of of big financial firms to extract rents from the poor chump taxpayer, usually by invoking scary images of the financial version of nuclear winter. Since we ...
AIG is Dead; Long Live AIG!
alephblog.com 8/28/2009 — When Robert Benmosche was named CEO of AIG, I thought it was a good thing. Ed Liddy, possibly tired of the abuse, wanted to move on. Liddy was primarily skilled with personal lines P&C insurance, which was a small part of AIG, and has been sold off. Benmosche’s skills extend to ...
"Goldman big winner in government's revised bailout of AIG"
nakedcapitalism.com 11/12/2008 — Note that the headline above was on a Wall Street Journal story about the new taxpayer-raping improved version of the AIG bailout. The current headline is anodyne: "New AIG Rescue Is Bank Blessing." Just as one wonders why the government backed ...
The impotence of governments and derailing of shareholder culture
ftalphaville.ft.com 3/17/2009 — HOW MUCH POWER DOES A MAJORITY SHAREHOLDER HAVE IN AN ORGANISATION? The majority shareholder has great power for that person has the majority in passing the rules of the corporation. In business the stockholders vote by how many stocks they hold. The ...
The Real AIG Scandal —
The Big Money 3/17/2009
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the ...
MTV Inadvertently Airs Geithner and Liddy Drama —
The Big Money 3/17/2009
The AIG drama is a layered affair. There’s the initial outrage between the American people and the company, of course. But there’s also the more personal drama playing out between many of the officials and executives involved. The galling bonus ...
The Bigger Question Raised by AIG’s Bonuses —
The Big Money 3/17/2009
Andrew Ross Sorkin defends the AIG bonuses in today’s New York Times in the name of “the sanctity of contracts.” He asks, “If you think this economy is a mess right now, imagine what it would look like if the business community started to ...
AIG Can No Longer Party Like It's 1999 —
The Big Money 3/18/2009
From an addendum to Edward Liddy's congressional testimony : "Until the late 1990's, AIG was a well-respected, regulated, and conservative insurance operation."
Proof that it is no longer the late 1990s.
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