Day: March 18, 2009

AIG Facts are Even Worse Than You Thought

Trish

When you hear the emerging facts on the AIG bonus pay-out, no matter how tired you are of the whole topic, you get outraged all over again. According to Attorney Gen. Andrew Cuomo’s office, as reported by Reuters:

* AIG distributed more than $160 million in retention payments to employees at its Financial Products unit, the subsidiary Cuomo says was “principally responsible for the firm’s meltdown.”

* The top AIG bonus recipient received more than $6.4 million

* The top seven bonus recipients received more than $4 million each

* Top 10 bonus recipients received a combined $42 million

* 22 individuals received bonuses of $2 million or more, and combined they received more than $72 million

* 73 people received bonuses of $1 million or more

* 11 recipients of “retention” bonuses of $1 million or more are no longer working at AIG, including one who received $4.6 million

* Employment contracts with AIG bonus recipients had required most individuals’ bonuses to be 100 percent of their 2007 bonuses “despite obvious signs that 2008 performance would be disastrous in comparison to the year before.”

My friend’s husband recently retired as a sales rep for Valic, which was taken over by AIG some years ago. Not only does he have to put up with jokes about the size of his final bonus ($0), but he has to reconcile retiring from a disgraced company after many years working for honorable ones. I think I hate AIG.

Did Bush Say He Plans ‘Authoritarian’ Book on His Presidency?

Jon Ponder

In its report on George Bush’s speech in Calgary, Canada, yesterday, the Associated Press write-up included this nugget:

Bush said that he doesn’t know what he will do in the long term but that he will write a book that will ask people to consider what they would do if they had to protect the United States as president.

He said it will be fun to write and that “it’s going to be (about) the 12 toughest decisions I had to make.”

“I’m going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there’s an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened,” Bush said.

In its version of the quote, Republican-leaning Politico.com replaced “authoritarian” with “authoritative.”

It is quite possible, of course, that Bush mistakenly believes “authoritarian” and “authoritative” are synonymous.

Boss Limbaugh: ‘I Am All for the AIG Bonuses’ – Also Lies about Dems’ Efforts to Restrict AIG’s Corporate Pork

Jon Ponder

Just days after alleged death-squad leader Dick Cheney gave his hearty endorsement to Rush Limbaugh as the Republican Party’s new boss, Limbaugh weighed in on the controversy over $400 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses slated to be paid to derivatives traders at insurance giant AIG.

“Let me tell you something, folks. I am all for the AIG bailouts, and I am all for the AIG bonuses. Well, I’m not for the bailouts, well, in a way I’m for the bailout because I’m for the bonuses.”

On his radio rantfest yesterday, Limbaugh came out in support of corporate pork and then — after quickly retracting his support of bailouts and then just as quickly retracting the retraction — came out full force in favor of the AIG bonuses, which would use taxpayer money to reward the traders whose risky schemes crashed the world economy:

Rush Limbaugh: “Let me tell you something, folks. I am all for the AIG bailouts, and I am all for the AIG bonuses. Well, I’m not for the bailouts, well, in a way I’m for the bailout because I’m for the bonuses.”

And Rush said: “We need some perspective here. Okay, so they’ve got $170 billion in bailouts, the bonuses are $165 million. The AIG bonuses are one-tenth of 1 percent of all the bailout money, not just for AIG, but for everybody else. It’s in their contracts. What is the number-one asset any company has? It’s people. It’s employees. This $165 million in bonuses is gonna help estimate the economy. It’s going to stimulate the New York City economy, $165 million, one-tenth of 1 percent of all bailout. The populist thing to do, the popular thing to come and do here today is bang my fist and be outraged over how in the world can they use my taxpayer money this way.”

Of course, many of the traders who have received the initial $165 million in bonuses were citizens of Great Britain who worked in AIG’s London office, and so won’t be stimulating the U.S. economy. It was also revealed yesterday that after receiving these “retention bonuses,” many of the traders left AIG for greener pastures.

In this snippet from yesterday, he criticizes a senator for suggesting that AIG bonus recipients should commit suicide — conveniently omitting the fact that the senator was a Republican — and then he deliberately misstates facts about Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd’s efforts to restrict the bonuses from being paid out:

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