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Reuters
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Mar 23, 09 8:37 PM CDT
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Workers pulled down an AIG sign in New York City today as the insurer sought to rebrand itself and deflect outrage over executive bonuses, Reuters reports. The company's Manhattan property-casualty office, renamed AIU Holdings Ltd, wasn't the first to change its name since the bailout started last fall. AIG's US auto insurance arm reverted to its old name, 21st Century.
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Wall Street Journal
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Mar 23, 09 6:01 PM CDT
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New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said today that most of the top bonus recipients at AIG have agreed to return the money, amounting to more than $50 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Fifteen of the top 20 beneficiaries of $165 million at AIG's Financial Products unit—which played a critical role in crippling the company—will give up the cash. "They are doing the right thing," Cuomo said.
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Salon
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Mar 23, 09 11:40 AM CDT
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Everyone’s aflutter about the AIG bonuses—but there’s a much more lucrative way to take Wall Street to task than obsessing over $165 million, writes Joe Conason in Salon. The government should instead focus on the billions that financial firms are putting in offshore tax havens. Corporate tax evasion was estimated to cost the US $100 billion 2 years ago—and that number could be low.
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Washington Post
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Mar 23, 09 7:41 AM CDT
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The White House might not be onboard with bills sprinting through Congress to tax away AIG’s outrage-inducing bonuses. Top White House financial advisers are reacting coolly to the suggestion, the Washington Post reports. “The president has been clear we don’t want to govern out of anger,” said one economic official.
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Politico
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Mar 22, 09 11:17 AM CDT
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Amidst calls for his ouster, Timothy Geithner can bank on big name supporters: Arnold Schwarzenegger told NBC’s Meet the Press he has confidence in the embattled Treasury secretary, while Michael Bloomberg added that Geithner “is exactly the guy that I would want.” On Fox News Sunday , Christina Romer called demands for Geithner’s dismissal “really silly.”
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New York Times
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Mar 22, 09 11:04 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Michelle Obama said her husband would be pulling garden weeds whether he “liked it or not”—and the president could take a page from her book, writes Maureen Dowd in the New York Times . Obama and the Treasury secretary “have been coddling the Wall Street elite,” and the banking bigwigs are taking advantage, heedlessly throwing money around like nothing’s changed.
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Associated Press
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Mar 21, 09 10:25 AM CDT
(Newser) -
AIG documents show the firm paid out $218 million in bonuses—higher than the $165 million that had been disclosed, says Connecticut’s attorney general. The papers show five at the firm scored bonuses of more than $4 million, said Richard Blumenthal, whose office received the papers last night after issuing a subpoena, the AP reports. The new figures will “further fuel the justified anger and revulsion,” he said.
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Associated Press
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Mar 20, 09 6:00 PM CDT
(AP) -
Senate Republicans are drawing out a flap that has made the Obama administration squirm, the AP reports. Sen. Jon Kyl, the Republicans' vote counter, blocked Democratic efforts yesterday to bring up the Senate version of the tax bill to recoup most of the $165 million paid out by AIG last weekend and other bonuses in 2009. The House had swiftly approved its version of the bill earlier in the day.
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CNN
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Mar 20, 09 5:10 PM CDT
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Sen. Chris Dodd says that if he had known the purpose of changes to legislation he drafted for the stimulus package, he “would have flatly rejected it,” CNN reports. Dodd’s rewrite, at the behest of unnamed Treasury officials, allowed AIG and others receiving federal assistance to dole out millions in previously promised bonuses. The Connecticut Democrat says he was led to believe that the changes were “technical and innocuous,” and that he agreed “reluctantly.”
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Wall Street Journal
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Mar 20, 09 2:01 PM CDT
(Newser) -
The attorneys general of 19 states have joined forces to investigate the bonus payments made to AIG employees, the Wall Street Journal reports. In a letter to the firm, the coalition demands a list of all employees of the financial products unit who received bonuses after the government started providing financial assistance in September 2008.
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Politico
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Mar 20, 09 11:25 AM CDT
(Newser) -
The vote to tax AIG bonuses split the House’s top two Republicans, and illustrates the differences in their strategies, reports Politico. Minority Leader John Boehner voted against, calling it “a bad bill with bad consequences.” Boehner’s No. 2, rising star Eric Cantor, supported it, calling it a “messy situation.” The two normally work together closely, but asked how Cantor would vote, Boehner said, “I haven’t talked to him about it.”
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New York Times
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Mar 20, 09 10:32 AM CDT
(Newser) -
Even as Washington rails against AIG’s bonus giveaway, the insurer is quietly suing the government for $306 million in tax payments, the New York Times reports. AIG’s case hinges largely on its use of offshore tax havens, including one entity that handles executive compensation. It also says it overpaid the government after a 2004 accounting scandal forced it to restate records.
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New York Times
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Mar 20, 09 9:58 AM CDT
(Newser) -
The AIG scandal has turned company execs from pillars of their communities into dastardly villains, reports the New York Times . Witness James Haas—or Jackpot Jimmy as the New York Post calls him. "I didn’t have anything to do with those credit problems,” says Haas, who fought back tears and told reporters outside his home of death threats. He's returned his bonus, and other top execs are doing the same, but that didn't stop a neighbor from stopping by to berate him to the press.
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CBS News
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Mar 20, 09 8:31 AM CDT
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AIG’s former CEO tells CBS that the bonuses now sparking national outrage would not have happened under his watch. Hank Greenberg, ousted in 2005, said he doesn’t back such retention bonuses, blamed the firm's collapse on the "stupidity" of his successors, and thinks the current CEO should go. “When I was there, nobody had a contract in the company, including me. I didn't believe in them. If you didn't do the job, you didn't deserve to be there,” he said.
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Washington Post
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Mar 20, 09 7:56 AM CDT
(Newser) -
It’s time to put down the pitchforks, writes Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post . Public outrage is getting so hot that it’s actually undermining government efforts to contain the financial crisis. Right now, the Treasury is desperately trying to lure private capital back into the so-called shadow banking system. But how eager will private equity be to invest if it thinks it will face “front page accusations, congressional inquiries and public outrage?”
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The Hill
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Mar 20, 09 7:38 AM CDT
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The financial crisis has exacted a political toll on Sen. Chris Dodd few would have seen coming. The veteran senator, elected in 1980, now trails his challenger by 1%, reports the Hill . Resentment of VIP mortgages he received was already hurting him. Dodd’s fumbled explanations of his role in exempting AIG-style bonuses from regulation have done little to improve his position, despite the Obama administration's attempt to take responsibility.
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CNNMoney
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Mar 19, 09 6:26 PM CDT
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Treasury chief Tim Geithner said today that he asked Chris Dodd to add a stimulus loophole allowing AIG to dole out bonuses. Geithner told CNN he felt he had no choice because the government would have been vulnerable to lawsuits if it tried to stop them. "But we also worked with (Dodd) to strengthen the overall framework, and his bill has this very important provision we're relying on now to go back and see if we can recoup payments that were made that there was no legal ability to block."
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Washington Post
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Mar 19, 09 2:46 PM CDT
(Newser) -
By a 328-93 vote, the House today approved a bill that would recover most of the bonus money awarded to executives of bailout-buoyed AIG by taxing it at 90%. The measure drew significant Republican support, and some Democrats made it clear the legislation is an attempt to persuade execs to return the payments voluntarily, the Washington Post reports.
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Slate
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Mar 19, 09 12:44 PM CDT
(Newser) -
Edward Liddy’s much-ballyhooed testimony yesterday—Chris Matthews billed it as “Watergate Redux”—didn’t wind up accomplishing much, “aside from revealing congressional ignorance of all things financial,” Daniel Gross writes in Slate. Yes, Liddy currently runs the reviled AIG, but he wasn’t running it when it blew up. “He’s not the villain,” Gross insists. “He’s a genuine dollar-a-year man.”
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New York Times
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Mar 19, 09 10:28 AM CDT
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Thank meek Tim Geithner for the wrath coming from the New York Times today. “We need a Treasury secretary so terrifying that if you were stuck in an elevator alone with him, you would just hand over your wallet,” Gail Collins writes. “And I’m totally angry at everybody in Congress for trying to pretend that they’re angrier than I am.”
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