AIG, blatant disregard

What a cesspool of greed.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2009/db20090317_032819.htm?campaign_id=bwdaily_related

TAKE A HINT FROM THE JAPANESE: Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said that AIG execs should take responsibility by resigning or killing themselves. In a Mar. 16 interview with a Cedar Rapids radio station, he said: "I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed. But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them [is] if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say: 'I'm sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."

'BEST AND BRIGHTEST': From a New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial: "AIG officials have, understandably, been hard-pressed to defend this bonus and retention boondoggle. But that hasn't deterred them from trying." As [Edward M.] Liddy, AIG's president, told Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the payments are needed "to retain the best and the brightest talents" to run AIG.

Surely he jests.

"This band of 'best and brightest' just blew a $62 billion hole in the company. What's to retain? Heads should be rolling. Besides, is there really that much cutthroat competition for such an overpaid bunch of losers? Maybe there is—which would explain a lot about what passes for talent around lower New York City these days and, if so, is downright frightening."

DEFLECTING ATTENTION: The Wall Street Journal, in a Mar. 17 editorial, says that the furor over the bonuses is shifting attention from the fact that many of the AIG counterparties that received billions in payments funded by the federal government are overseas financial institutions. "Given that the government has never defined 'systemic risk,' we're also starting to wonder exactly which system American taxpayers are paying to protect. It's not capitalism, in which risk-takers suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And in some cases it's not even American. The U.S. government is now in the business of distributing foreign aid to offshore financiers, laundered through a once-great American company."

Give me a freaking break.