AIG: What struck me about Hank Greenberg's testimony today before the Oversight Committee

[Mike 03]

is that:

1. This pugnacious, wry and insightful little man should proceed directly to replace Liddy because he does have (and has had for months) a plan that would save us billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars and he knows what he is talking about. We can unencumber ourselves from AIG without parting with billions of tax dollars, while saving what can be saved, and de-levering what can be delevered.

2. This is an example of why our system is failing. Our congresspeople are so busy preparing their speeches and choreographing their hometown sound and TV bytes that they are not doing the obvious things they need to do: Greenberg has been volunteering his plan for months and months and no one has listened to this man. And today, if you watched the hearings, you saw that virtually NOBODY on the committee bothered to read what he had submitted in advance of his testimony, let alone even LISTEN to the hearing.

Why was he asked the same question (how he would have handled AIG) more than fifteen times? It's because our politicians don't even pay attention to their own hearings. If my eyes didn't deceive me, I even believe I saw, in several instances, the SAME PERSON ask the SAME QUESTION twice--once in the first round and again in the second.

I'm sick of seeing this. It happens over and over again.


I'm beginning to wonder: Who are the bigger dummies? The folks on these committees or the panelists they are trying to scapegoat?

I can name people whose time would be better spent doing their jobs than performing like dancing dogs for these idiots:

Geithner
Bernanke
Neil Kashkari
Elizabeth Warren
Liddy
Neil Baranofsky (Special IG, TARP)
Dodaro

And today was just another embarrassment, another lost opportunity to save our money and keep AIG from being wastefully unwound at our expense.

Argggg.

[Howardx]

1. greenberg is a criminal and a liar

do some research.

[girl gone mad]

2. Greenberg needs to shut up and go away at this point.

Saving AIG was never important. This has always been and always will be about saving the AIG counterparties. Even if bailing out the counterparties was smart (it's not), the fact that AIG has any equity value at all is merely an unfortunate side effect of the bailouts.

Of course, Greenberg continues to pretend he had no culpability. From the Wall Street Journal:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) was more direct, asking Mr. Greenberg during a heated exchange, "Do you take any responsibility at all?"

Mr. Greenberg, accompanied by high-profile attorney David Boies, refused to accept any blame.

"No I don't," Mr. Greenberg said, referring to subsequent losses at the financial-products division and downgrades of AIG's ratings. He said the management that took over when he left the firm "must have paid very little attention" to the growing problems that led to the firm's demise.

Greenberg hired Joe Cassano, the architect of this financial meltdown. It isn't as if Greenberg left and then suddenly everything imploded. Things had been headed this direction for a long time.


Here's a good clip of Greenberg getting his ass handed to him by Paul Kanjorski today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9fErn7dNY