New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said late Monday that 15 of the top 20 recipients of $165 million in retention bonuses from American International Group Inc.’s Financial Products unit have agreed to give back their bonuses — amounting to an excess of $50 million in cash.
[...]
“I applaud all the AIG employees that are returning the bonuses,” said Mr. Cuomo in a conference call. “They are doing the right thing.”
He added that he sees no public interest in revealing the names of people who return their bonuses, and he acknowledged that returning the money is a difficult decision for many people in the unit who were not involved in creating the problematic transactions that helped topple AIG.
The Rest Of You Will Cough It Up Before Noon Tomorrow Or Risk Having Your Names, Addresses and License Plate Numbers Revealed In A Press Conference With The AG
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- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
y’all sleepin’ at yo desk
Matt Lauer’s got quicker reaction time
First!
@1- yeah, except for the fact that dealbreaker really only publishes 9-5, because, unlike you, the editors have, you know, lives.
“Mr. Obama and his aides regularly and publicly criticized financial firms for buying private planes and redecorating offices and hosting lavish parties. The talk was fueled in part by the results of surveys by New York pollster Joel Benensen, commissioned by the Democratic Party, which Mr. Axelrod regularly reviews. The polls consistently showed that the public blames big financial firms for the current mess, and is hesitant to offer aid.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123785266231219605.html
Where are the Wall Street Obama apologists?
The AIG top-earners are people who failed to make the cut at the top banks. AIG had no clout only money back in ’02. Who would have picked AIG over LEH/GS/MS back then? Well, jokes on most of us (LEH/BSC/MS et. al.), they’re getting paid. Now I’d like to see exactly how much. How much are you spending on your 5 bedroom home, golf clus and stripper/ex-sales associate wife? Enquiring minds want to know. Thanks Gossip Girl, I mean Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo will be arrested for using government computers for gay porn within 6 months- his wife left the hideous troll because he was such a douche and could not get her off
@4
what cut?
you do realize there is no difference between any douche that works in financial instruments at any Wall Street firm?
you might think there is, due to various imaginary hierarchies related to schooling…but all that crap means is those with fatter GPAs from more effeminate schools are tools that worked harder at learning shit material – namely, that financial markets are efficient…all Wall Street dildos believe that, whereas anyone that’s ever started a business knows the exact opposite is reality
so the GS panty-wetters in their Brioni suits might know their material really, really well, but in the end, it’s all jive, so the guy with a 75 IQ getting ready to pack it in and head off to the Gold Club (annex) might in fact have a better chance of putting up decent numbers, given the fact that all of you spoon fed Exeter grads don’t really know jack shit
suck it
@ #6: Not all GS people wear Brioni suits. We are generally normal guys. Lighten up.
@7
i don’t doubt that you believe that…in this defining moment, our dipshit president believes we’re all better off under a socialist umbrella
still makes him fucking wrong though
and financial markets are ludicrously inneficient (thankfully so), which was my point…didn’t necessarily mean to pick on GS – could be ANY wall street firm, they’re all the same, some just have a more sophisticated approach to toll-collecting
@6 everyone I know who ended up at an insurance company/foreign bank between ’00-’03 was shot down 5 times first. Tables have turned as they are wont to do. Hedge funds were always cool but AIG wunt no hadge fund back in the day. I’m just saying…
You work for me now.
-General M. Bison
Gosh. This is soooo hard. I wanted to be somebody. But no, I had to attend the Univeristy of Delaware. Not one of the fag Ivys. They would’nt have me. (I guess I could’nt bend over far enough.) Then, I wanted to get a banking job on Wall Street. Not to happen. No. Not with my school. So, I used my analytical skills to derive really cool money making formulas. Down here in Delaware. I was a Quant. Then, something went wrong and I accidentally blew up the entire US financial sytem. Oops…My bad.
The Other Guy From Delaware
Bitches
i’m still trying to figure why you wall street suckers overwhelming supported obama?
white/jew guilt?
are obama and cuomo giving back their compensation for running failing state entities?
@12- because no matter how bad you think things are now, it would’ve been 1000X worse with a senile old man and dumb cunt bitch in office. that’s why.
I thought the repubs wanted to lose. Did they think the Dan Quyale thing would work twice?
13 Yeah, but if grandpa and sarah snowpants had won, Levi and Bristol would still be an item. Now he’s free to work his puck however he wants.
@15- which is a good thing, wouldn’t you say?
16 agree totally
wow this is terrible. Sounds to me like threatening AIG employees into giving the money back ?
“He added that he sees no public interest in revealing the names of people who return their bonuses”
So return it or be named ?
What happens when an intellectually challenged member of the public commits a violent crime against someone named by our Public Overseers ?
Whilst we are all in a returning mood. Perhaps the people living in houses they cannot afford ( demonstrated by virtue of being in arrears with the mortgage ) will return them too ?
AIGs mistake was to bet recklessly that the home market wouldnt collapse like it has.
18 Have the houses returned to the lenders? There’s a mechanism for doing that – its called foreclosure. And Cuomo is simply attempting to do the equivalent to the bonuses.
Cuomo is awesome, this is how things should be done – bare knuckled. It is too bad $80M of U.S. taxpayer money went directly into the pockets of non-citizens. Hell, that is more than we send as foreign aid to many countries!
@20 – You are a total fucking tampon. If you choked down on any more of Frank and Rangel’s splooge you might crap out a Pelosi, You and your worthless fucking ilk are ruining 50 years of financial innovation and in doing so America’s greatest export.
Did things go wrong? yes. It’s tragic. Were crimes committed? In some instances, of course. Ethics were thrown out the door for returns. But that is part of the whole risk of free markets gig…
So should we cut off the leg because of a bum toenail…? That sounds like the approach you are suggesting. So go on and hastily enact poorly thought out punitive legislation that will take at least ten years to unwind and roll with the populist sentiment that consistently overwhelms nations when financial turmoil strikes (you can set your watch to it like you can set your watch to the fact that NY will elect a total douche/fail of an AG every election).
So will this crisis be the downfall of American greatness? Possibly, but it won’t be a direct result of the banks/Wall Street/homeowners/global investors, instead it will be because of the asinine legislative overreaction spearheaded by your boy Cuomo, supported by the morons in congress and the executive and enabled by great American intellectuals like you…
-Dobber
@20 – You are a total fucking tampon. If you choked down on any more of Frank and Rangel’s splooge you might crap out a Pelosi, You and your worthless fucking ilk are ruining 50 years of financial innovation and in doing so America’s greatest export.
Did things go wrong? yes. It’s tragic. Were crimes committed? In some instances, of course. Ethics were thrown out the door for returns. But that is part of the whole risk of free markets gig…
So should we cut off the leg because of a bum toenail…? That sounds like the approach you are suggesting. So go on and hastily enact poorly thought out punitive legislation that will take at least ten years to unwind and roll with the populist sentiment that consistently overwhelms nations when financial turmoil strikes (you can set your watch to it like you can set your watch to the fact that NY will elect a total douche/fail of an AG every election).
So will this crisis be the downfall of American greatness? Possibly, but it won’t be a direct result of the banks/Wall Street/homeowners/global investors, instead it will be because of the asinine legislative overreaction spearheaded by your boy Cuomo, supported by the morons in congress and the executive and enabled by great American intellectuals like you…
-Dobber
Winnie Cooper got married over the weekend. I’m heart broken.
Dobber,
Nice double-post, idiot. Cuomo isn’t passing any legislation (note, he is in the executive branch). He is simply calling up those AIG pikers and offering them a deal that they can’t refuse. You see, sometimes, when you sign a contract, it might be for a deal that is too good to be true; for instance, collecting a bonus via the U.S. taxpayer on ~$24 Billion in negative revenue. Sorry, AIG is getting exactly what it deserves. Oh, and socializing losses across the U.S. tax base has nothing to do with free-market capitalism.
is it me or is everyone failing to see the pinko creep of 1122 pennsylvania avenue? they’ve now got a wpa allotment garden going in the backyard! wage control, daily propaganda via popular tv programs, protectionism, violations of the 4th amendment–what’s next? gulags?
idiots. we own aig and need to fob off its parts to recoup our losses. they are just destroying the little value left of the company that we had a chance to sell. nice work, morons!
24, you are missing the point… It definitely was not about Cuomo’s function in the government. I am totally aware that he has no active role in the legislative process (at least not until he makes his inevitable run for office following his headline tenure as NY AG)… He and his company are the kind that spur the overreactive legislation that plagues the United States for years after every major market crisis/scandal, only this time the stakes are much higher because this congress is out of control and hoi polloi is buying it hook line and sinker. (Obama is the hook)
I admit, the double post hurts but it does not take away from the fact that government has no place targeting a specific company when no existing laws were broken (even if the case at hand is without precedent and ethically egregious). Read the constitution pal… I know a lot of you forgot about that old relic…
Oh, and don’t apologize to me because “AIG is getting exactly what they deserve”, apologize to your children because at this rate they won’t ever see how free market capitalism actually functions. I totally agree, socializing losses is awful but unfortunately necessary in this case. Socializing the rest of the economy is the real tragedy here…
-Dobber
Dobber@#21/22…
“You and your worthless fucking ilk are ruining 50 years of financial innovation.”
Hey Dobber, Not 50 years. Washington and Main Street just want to see the last 10 years of all that great “financial innovation” get ruined, reversed really.
The Guy from Delaware
Proudly among the “Less than Brightest”
guest@#26…
“they are just destroying the little value left of the company (AIG) that we had a chance to sell.”
So taking away undeserved bonuses from a bunch of worthless assholes who infest the most worthless part of AIG, is somehow going to destroy the value of the remaining 95% of AIG??
Amazing! AIG-FP and the tools who live there have value according to Dobber. Amazing!
The Guy from Delaware
Dobber,
I will apologize for being unnecessarily harsh (r.e. double-posting), but I still contend that these AIG-holes deserve nothing and that the U.S. Constitution was written to defend the population from having to pay tithes and duties to kings and tyrants like the royal traders at AIG. Furthermore, let me add that Wall Street is pretty stupid since all this socialism is just going to beget more socialism.
‘Would you give back your bonus if you were an AIG executive?” http://tinyurl.com/c4msme A surprising CNBC poll.
“In general, AIG’s tax deals permitted U.S. companies and foreign banks to effectively claim credit in their home country for a single tax payment, partly through the use of an offshore AIG subsidiary, the paper said.”http://www.cnbc.com/id/29847385
EP,
Goldman bot 126 calls on the 10 yr contract hours before the QE announcement. I’m sure they did levels on that shit going both ways, but how the fuck would they know that the announcement would be so momentous? And how did they know to buy such out of the money calls? How the fuck does someone make directional bet that the T market would move the most in nearly 50 years, and get it right?!?!?
While the rest of the market got its dick ripped off, the Goldman boys somehow came out great? How did they know, omniscience? The turnover between the treasury and Goldman is sickening. Add this to everything else Goldman has done over the many years. Cheaters, they are fucking cheaters.
And this is not a case of “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Goldman is the only player that I know that slants the fucking game in their favor. If anyone else in the market pulled a tenth of the shit they did the SEC would scream “TILT, TILT, TILT.” But no, Goldman gets away with it. Now add the AIG nonsense to all their other sneaky plays.
This is the real story of our time: Goldman crony garbage.
-Fuck Goldman
“There are enemies both foreign and domestic. Call it fear-mongering or call it the truth. Either way, remember: You are the key. While you search for the truth, they will try to demean you.
If we can put principles over parties and do the right thing — not the easy thing — we will heal this nation and restore her as the beacon of freedom for all those not just yearning to breathe free, but for those who respect the hard work and sacrifice that makes it possible.” http://tinyurl.com/cnedgo
Worth a look.
The Capital One godless heathens were seen running toward CT up the West Side Highway this morning singin “Boys are back’n town, Boys are back’n town”.
Anyone else see anything wrong with:
“he acknowledged that returning the money is a difficult decision for many people in the unit who were not involved in creating the problematic transactions that helped topple AIG”??
I’m sure glad he acknowledged that the people felt badly about getting robbed.
Bloomberg.com gives a shout-out to Dealbreaker…..
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=agdquPfpIk78&refer=home
Let me clarify, I do not think the losers in the financial products unit at AIG deserve the bonuses either, but the government does not and should not have the right to punish in a specific instance. It sets a very dangerous paradigm.
My point was not specifically about AIG, but about how out of control the left has gone, you know absolutely power crazy? BTW, it won’t just be the illegitimate financial innovation that took place over the last 50/10 (however long you want to call it), it will be all of it.
TGFD – As a long time fan of many of your posts, I was surprised at your post. I never claimed that they have value. I do think that it is important that AIG keep most of them to unwind the sh*tstorm that they created as (unfortunate as this may be) many of them would be poached by other companies leaving AIG in even more of a distressed position.
-Dobber
nobody seems to be able answer my very simple question which was why the heck did wall street suckers overwhelmingly support obama?
government pay grades for all finance people.
@33
Hear, hear. I can’t tell you how many times GS has called up to pitch some deal that we two weeks later read has gone tits-up; or to buy some tail risk for I-swear-the-trader-just-needs-a-mark-purposes which somehow then winds up in the money. I very quickly learned not to be the sucker at GS’s table. But other people in the firm TO THIS DAY come to me and whine “the GS relationship manager wonders why your area doesn’t do much business with them” and lecture me how if we don’t do more biz with them we won’t be “in the club” that gets to look at their “juicy deals.” Geez, it’s like some club, with always another level of VIP behind yet another door or velvet rope. But the doors never end…
@ 39 – They were dazed and confused? How could someone who has never actually lived under or next door to socialism/communism and who would never think to ask why it was only East Germans who got shot in the back headed West but not the other way around be expected to fully grasp the implications of this crap?
Those who have grown up with the ACLU and the protections of the US Constitution have obviously never experienced the sheer joy of a Stasi full-cavity search. The loss of personal freedom is at best an abstract concept to these people.
NYC is full of liberal shitheads who grew up in Connecticut, live in rent-controlled apartments in the Village, who send their kids to private and who don’t think of socialism as being such a bad thing. Wait until they realize the cabbage at the state-owned supermarket isn’t organic. It’s a romantic idea to them, like living with the Masai or buying textiles while on vacation in Vietnam.
Besides, the elites know that at the top of the Commie food chain, at the very least they will always have their dachas and their chaffeur-driven Volvos, so they don’t need to give a damn about anyone else below. They just act like they do, in order to gain power from weak, lazy and stupid people.
That anyone working in the public sector or living on benefits voted for BHO was a no-brainer. It’s even somewhat understandable that all the naive, white college kids living on Daddy’s Visabuxx who think Chavez is “kewl” voted for him, too.
But you really would think people with brains and who have benefitted from capitalism would have known better.
AkGwmg Major thanks for the blog. Awesome.