Of note is the fact that they still have yet to fix any of the underlying problems that resulted in what is nothing more than trillion dollar welfare checks for the bankers:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

"The leaders on Wall Street completely lost any sense of their responsibility to the society," Lewis said. "And if you know you're gonna blow up AIG by putting $20 billion of bad subprime mortgage risk into it even though it's gonna be very profitable for you, you should stop and say this shouldn't be done."

You would think that Wall Street and the bankers would feel some sense of shame because they are living on welfare. But the absurd size of their welfare checks eases their pain and I am sure they would like to thank you for keeping them in the money as you go without. (H/T to Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars)

What do you think this kind of crappy inbreeding results in?

(Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc.
named Peter Hancock, described by a former employer as an
“architect” of the derivatives business, to oversee finance
and risk, including the insurer’s money-losing credit-default
swap unit.

Hancock spent 20 years at a predecessor to JPMorgan Chase &
Co., where he established the derivatives group and served as
chief financial officer, New York-based AIG said in a statement
today. Hancock, who most recently was vice chairman at KeyCorp
responsible for national banking, will report to AIG Chief
Executive Officer Robert Benmosche.

Hancock “is one of the people that basically developed the
credit-default swaps market at JPMorgan in the mid-1990s,” said
Ed Grebeck, CEO of Stamford, Connecticut-based debt-consulting
firm Tempus Advisors and an instructor at New York University on
derivatives. “Given that he was one of the pioneers, it’s
probably the first good appointment that any one of these
bailed-out firms has made.”

Those prankster shadow bank CEOs... They sure know where to put the right people to bury their body of crimes. What? You're not laughing??? You little people have no sense of humor. Maybe you'll like this joke a little more?

Some recent reasons:

• 
  Geithner’s dubious AIG cover up
  
  - Naked Capitalism
• 
  NY Fed Told AIG to Hide Details of Swaps Payouts to Banks
  
  - Naked Capitalism
• Geithner's New York Fed Pushed AIG To Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret - HuffPo
• 
  Economic Outrage du Jour: Emails Exposed
  
  - Daily Kos
  

It isn't looking pretty for him.

originally posted 2009-04-12 21:29:02 -0500, bumped by carol

Elizabeth Warren was appointed chair of a newly created Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), which is charged with keeping tabs on the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector - including Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).

Warren however, has had some "Trouble" getting straight forward answers ... as she explained to the Boston Globe:

Keeping tabs on the bailout

By Elizabeth Warren -- April 12, 2009

    Elizabeth Warren: There's a major problem and a minor problem. The minor problem is documentation. I've spent four weeks now looking for someone who can give me the details of the stress test so that we can do an independent evaluation of whether the stress test is any good.

    We get: "someone will call [you] right back." Only the call doesn't come. The major problem is ...

UPDATE 4/2/09 .... BELOW ARTICLE

Has not been a good week for Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut (one of two of my Senators) and as I might suspect the CT GOP and GOP at large must be salivating at the notion that they may actually have a chance to win the next time Dodd runs for office.

Dodd's polls were down even before this week's AIG debacle, uh no ... uh yes ... but it was them, I mean talk about a meltdown before your eyes, even Chernobyl didn't go as quick.

The recent furor over the $165 million in bonuses paid to AIG executives -- allegedly for "retention" even though 11 of 17 recipients are now no longer at the firm -- has resulted in a whirlwind of activity on Capitol Hill and from the White House, resulting in statements and claims that virtually every last dollar of those ill-gotten gains (the bonuses) will be recovered.

According to this piece on Reuters, U.S. to claw back AIG bonuses, lawmakers eye tax,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration turned up the heat on AIG (AIG.N) on Tuesday over its employee bonuses, saying the embattled insurer will be forced to repay U.S. taxpayers before it gets another bailout of $30 billion.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laid out the conditions in a letter to congressional leaders as irate lawmakers moved quickly toward legislation that would slap a heavy tax on $165 million in bonuses paid by American International Group Inc.

[...snip...]

Beyond the bonuses, anger flared anew on Sunday when AIG disclosed that Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and a host of European banks were the major beneficiaries of $93 billion in payments from the insurer -- more than half of the U.S. taxpayer money spent to rescue it.

The ongoing bruhahas -- which I strongly suspect won't be the last ones related to this burgeoning crisis -- are not completely unexpected. For some interesting reading regarding clawbacks and the "polluter pays principal" see the following Journal articles by Michael Thomas:

Use Clawbacks to Fund Wall Street Bailouts, by Michael Thomas
		Attorney Michael Thomas shares his insights from working with dot com and venture capitalists and witnessing first hand how they cleaned up the dot com bubble mess using clawbacks. He has some suggestions for the Wall Street One Percenters.
Read more...
Use Polluter Pays Principle to Fund Bailout, by Michael Thomas
		Michael Thomas recognizes that the Bailout bill that failed to pass in the House on Monday was at best, a compromise. Instead of a 700 billion dollar bailout, Thomas suggests that there is a viable alternative for funding the bailout through the concept of the "Polluter Pays" principle used in Super Fund Cleanup legislation.
Read more...

Check 'em out, and keep an eye open for more "good stuff" as it comes along on both the ePluribus Media Journal and over here, on our Community Site.

This is an Open Thread.

So, now we know, two thirds of the bail out money which went to AIG between October and the end of December wasn’t intended for AIG at all, but was passed through to others. The list includes Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Societé Generale, and many others. And, if that wasn’t enough to make you choke on your coffee this morning, there’s the additional fuel of the AIG bonus story. OMG, this is just like totally over the top.

Fed Chairman Bernanke went to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday to testify. The Senators asked him at least four times, and in different ways, where he is burying the loot that is being shovelled his way. And, at least four times, he refused to answer.

If Free Markets are the supposed Engine of Growth,

Why do they always seem to lead to a "money grab",
a greedy "land rush", with the Tax payer ALWAYS picking up the Bill?

Why do the Rich, always manage to get richer?

While those who "play by the rules", just manage to get "pink slips" and foreclosure notices?

And an endless pile of Bills?

Which you can read here, and the stock was tanking, guess what AIG execs were up to.

Oh Ya Another 'It's Paaartiiii Time!!'

Another AIG Resort "Junket": Top Execs Caught on Tape

KNXV Discovers $343,000 Secret Gathering, AIG Signs and Logos Hidden

ABC News just had the report on their World News Tonight show.

originally posted 2008-10-08 06:54:32 - bumped, cho

AIG executives thank you for financing their trip to such a beautiful resort :)

They want you to know that your money paid for a wonderful retreat!! They have been exhausted from their role in deflating your 401k for their own enrichment - boy did they need this luxurious getaway. You (and your children and grandchildren) are so generous to pay for it!

promoted - cho

In the flurry of financial crisis stories, the media has neglected to mention the recent conviction of an AIG executive for accounting fraud. The crime is for "side letters" - much like the off-book arrangements that figured centrally in the Enron debacle.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos

Reuters, 9/5/08:

The defendants were convicted (this past Feburary) in connection with a reinsurance deal that prosecutors said misled AIG investors because it enabled the company to improperly inflate its loss reserves, painting an artificially bright picture of its financial results. AIG previously acknowledged accounting improprieties and restated $3.8 billion in earnings from 2000 through 2004 and agreed to a $1.64 billion regulatory settlement in 2006.

It’s good to know that someone bearing responsibility for this mess is going to jail. The AIG failure is probably the result of ginormous fraud schemes, with the bursting subprime mortgage bubble only a contributing factor. It defies credulity that over a trillion in assets reported earlier this year were all wiped out by the mortgage mess, given the regulations governing investment of insurance company assets. There's more to the story.

There was a sentencing hearing early this month in Connecticut, where the case was tried. From Bloomberg News 9/6/08:

The executives were convicted for using a sham transaction in 2000 to help AIG add $500 million in loss reserves, a key indicator of an insurer's health. Jurors convicted Ferguson, 66; Monrad, 53; Garand, 61, a former senior vice president; Graham, 60, a former General Re assistant general counsel; and Christian Milton, 60, AIG's former head of reinsurance.

Back to Reuters (linked above)::

In a sentencing memorandum filed late on Friday, prosecutors argued that sentences for the five defendants should be stiffer than the range of 168 months to 210 months calculated in a pre-sentence report.

The government also said losses to AIG investors could be estimated at more than $400 million -- with the government's expert calculating fraud-related losses as much as $1.4 billion -- a factor that should enhance the defendants' sentences.

International Herald Tribune, 9/12/08:

The former officers were accused of breaching fiduciary duties by redirecting insurance business that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions to another company they controlled.

Simultaneously, Maurice Greenberg, AIG's former chief executive and one of the former officers, began the first of what is expected to be three grueling days of depositions in a civil lawsuit brought against him by the office of the New York State attorney general, Andrew Cuomo. The lawsuit accuses Greenberg of devising transactions to make AIG's financial condition look stronger.

AIG's board removed Greenberg in 2005, after regulators served AIG with subpoenas.

Removed by request of Standingup on the behalf of the author.

In an extraordinarily important article today The Constitutional Moment Arrives, Stirling Newberry observes that

The key question is this: the American tax payers just bought the banking system. We are going to pay, with interest, upwards of three trillion dollars for it. A relative bargain actually. The question is what we are going to do with it now that we own it.

At the cost of your future, the U.S. financial system is being saved. For a half century, the United States has been unable to find a hundred billion or so a year to fund general healthcare, but now that financial powerhouses like Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and AIG are crumbling, the U.S. Treasury can magically procure trillions of dollars in promises without so much as a nit of resistance in either chamber of the U.S. Congress.