TIME: Treasury Learned of AIG Bonuses Earlier Than Claimed

[jordi_fanclub]

Source: Time

"Treasury staff was informed about the new bonuses in a Feb. 28 memo that the March 15 date was upcoming," a Federal Reserve source tells TIME. A Treasury Department source, speaking on background, confirmed the e-mail memo and its contents, saying, "Everybody knew that had a retention issue."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1886138,00.html

---

:popcorn:

[Demeter]

1. No Kidding! Who'd Have Thought It?

Every suspicious devotee of the Stock Market Watch, for one group.

[Cha]

2. Did the corporatemedia pay this

much attention when bush was fixing the evidence to bomb Iraq?

'Cause I'm thinking we might not have gone there if they'd done their job.

[pleah]

3. What? The media just woke up?

I'm shocked!:wow:

[jordi_fanclub]

4. Yes, seems media woke up. Meanwhile Congress seems at sleep yet...

Did Geithner Lie?

Time magazine is reporting that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may have misled Congress in his testimony about the AIG bonuses yesterday.

http://www.businessinsider.com/did-geithner-lie-2009-3

[Amonester]

5. Noooooo... he didn't Lie: he just "misled"...

Writing the 'Lie' word is "still" not allowed.

It hasn't been for the last 7-8 years, see? :yoiks:

[No Elephants]

11. Do you have the direct quote from his testimony that shows he lied under

penalties of perjury? If not, are you simply taking the word of the corporate media for it?

[stillcool]

7. He may have...but then again he may not have....

You'd think this whole financial meltdown that's occurred over the last few years was because of the bonuses that were paid out last Saturday.

[Jambalaya]

8. Summers mummer

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that . . . I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."

Lawrence Summers, Obama's Director of the WH National Economic Council in a 1991 memo while at the World Bank. Summers is leading the chorus demanding that Wall Street gangsters be allowed to keep their bonuses.

Uhh, is this the kind of "exports" to the 3rd World you're talking about Larry? Dumping toxic crap, including radioactive waste off Somalia's coastline?

While the MSM is reporting that AIG bonuses are "only" in the 150 million dollar range , Amy Goodman of Democracy Now brings us the real number, 450 MILLION and the mealy-mouthed apology issued for this travesty by Oboma insider Larry Summers.


AIG to Pay Out $450 Million in Bonuses


The failed insurance giant AIG is preparing to pay out $450 million in bonuses to top executives and other employees despite receiving a $173 billion government bailout. The bonuses include over $165 million to executives in the Financial Products unit, which lost $40 billion last year and played a major role in the meltdown of the global financial system. AIG is paying out the bonuses even though it is now 80 percent owned by the US government. On Sunday, Lawrence Summers, the director of the White House National Economic Council, described the bonuses as outrageous, but he said the bonuses are part of a contract.

Lawrence Summers: “We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts. Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system.”

[No Elephants]

12. The corporate media is claiming that Geithner MAY have misled Congress and

you are assuming on that basis that Geithner in fact misled Congress? Shouldn't we wait for some facts?

[marshall]

16. Best to be proactive and prepare for any liklihood

We're not judge and jury here, we're just spitballin' for our own amusement. But I think at a grassroots level it is best to explore and prepare ourselves for any eventuality, not just the rosy ones.

[chimpymustgo]

10. This story isn't about the media. It's about politicians bought and paid for and doing the bidding

of AIG and other corporations. Lipstick on a mother fucking pig.

[No Elephants]

13. Wrong. Inhering in EVERY story reported by the media is the question whether the story is mis-

leading, especially when it smears a Democrat. Some realize that. Some don't--or pretend not to.

Speaking of which, do YOU have any proof that Geithner misled Congress, or that Geithner has been bought and paid for?

Chimpy, I'm sure you've noticed that a few posters here can be counted consistentlyly for a certain point of view. (I sometimes wonder if it's a few posters or just one poster and a bunch of his socks, but then I realize about that is silly. What difference does it really make if it's one stupid jerk or several?)

[antimatter98]

6. I hoped an Obama admin. would be above this b.s. We're back to BushCo I see.

I'm personally real disappointed in President Obama. He's in with the
same mentality we had with BushCo, and it's only our 'hope' that keeps us from
standing up and calling these new guys out.

My plea: don't wait too long, because left unchecked, Geithner, Rubin and Summers
(and dare I say Holder) will just take us all further down the BushCo road to
poverty and a 3rd world America.

I voted for Obama, but am quickly seeing that he's total global, not out for
America as I'd hoped.

We need: a New AMERICAN Order, not a new World Order. And: America has no business
plan for success, only a plan for looting, outsourcing American jobs, and killing off
the hopes of tens of millions of American citizens, for the sake of the banks.

Disappointed, President Obama. Disappointed.

[No Elephants]

14. I would not reach any conclusions solely on the basis of Time saying "MAY HAVE.".And, Obama, what-

ever his faults--and I've been angry, too--is no Dummya by any stretch.

[burythehatchet]

17. keep treading. Only 40 miles to shore.

[Genoveseboy]

9. But...those treasury guys wouldn't hurt a fly

Or so I thought.

[struggle4progress]

15. Treasury officials explicitly allowed AIG bonuses

Executives could get up to 3.5 times their base salary without approval, records of a $40-billion November deal show. It also let the firm set aside as much money for 2008 bonuses as it did in 2006.
By Ralph Vartabedian and James Oliphant
March 19, 2009

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles -- In frantically rushing to the rescue of American International Group Inc. last fall, Treasury Department officials negotiated a $40-billion deal that explicitly allowed the company to set aside tens of millions of dollars for executive bonuses and richly reward individual senior executives without restrictions or any concern that the government might interfere.

Now, the legal agreement and other deals that came before it are making it difficult, if not impossible, to quench the political outrage over last week's $165 million in payments to wealthy executives at a company that exists only because of taxpayer bailouts ...

... the record shows that on Nov. 25, Treasury Department officials signed a securities agreement to provide $40 billion to AIG in exchange for preferred stock and rights to buy common stock. In that 586-page document, the agency explicitly allowed AIG to pay individual executives as much as 3.5 times their base salary without any approval.

The agreement also allowed AIG to set aside as much money for such bonuses for 2008 as it had in 2006, a year when the insurance giant was raking in vast amounts of profit from a financial bubble that would later maim the world economy ...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dodd19-2009mar19,0,2927073.story