Wonkette
Anybody else feeling some rage fatigue here? Some congressional grilling fatigue? Anyone else just want to rent out the world’s biggest Dumpster and put in it every financial goon whose name has made the front page of the New York Times in the past 24 months? Well, that’s what the ‘Tussin is for. A few squirts and you will be back riding the old Horse of Indignation once again. Join us on a journey through the dark heart of a London division of an American company that made all the money in the world disappear.
1:51 PM — Well, here we are, at some point in this dude’s testimony, who knows. Maybe he has been on for hours. But he looks okay for a guy who is getting anally invaded, with words, by “members” of Congress.
1:53 PM — The Pink Ladies are relinquishing their signs that say … something about the war, right? NOT RELEVANT.
1:54 PM — Now we will go back in time, and collect some remarks from our editor Ken Layne who caught the beginning of this public flogging.
1:40 PM — Here is Liddy’s long, contrite statement. Basically, he had to pay these scumbags $165 million in “bonuses,” otherwise they would not stay at the company and oversee the peaceful destruction of this particular AIG unit.
1:42 PM — You know, the advanced-financial-fuckery division that basically caused the Great Recession.
1:42 PM — Because with the entire financial sector in ruins and hundreds of thousands of former high-finance workers unemployed, it is very important to pay huge “retention bonuses” to these AIG coke addicts, to prevent them from moving to other, off-world finance companies.
1:45 PM — The honorable chairman would like Libby to know that this decision, to pay these bonuses “in the dark of night” on March 15, will sort of hurt future efforts to get a majority in Congress to approve any more TARP-esque bailout money, so the world is going to end.
1:55 PM — Back to our regularly scheduled programming, which is Barney Frank suggesting lawsuits and things.
1:56 PM — There is a difference between retention bonuses and performance bonuses; the AIGFP guys got zero performance bonuses. But they got retention bonuses for sticking around long enough to “wind down” the business they ruined, and then a bunch of them left with their retention bonus money.
1:58 PM — Liddy will give up the names of the people who didn’t give back bonuses if he can be assured they’ll remain confidential. Frank says “Sorry bro can’t guarantee that,” which is basically saying to the people who got the bonuses, “Give the money back or your names will be publicized, and you probably don’t want that.”
2:00 PM — Threats of piano wire etc. Ha, these people would not last a day as a common blogger.
2:01 PM — Barney Frank is unpersuaded by the safety argument, is the point.
2:02 PM — Well, to his credit, this dude does not appear completely rattled. Guess that’s why he makes the big bucks!
2:04 PM — Boring question, sort of confusing.
2:08 PM — This guy has a fancy new word for “trillion,” and it is “a million million.”
2:09 PM — “Parachuted in on a ship that hit the rocks,” says Gary Ackerman, from the mixed metaphors area of New York State. Who is this weasel talking to Ed Liddy about what a nice man he is? WE WANT BLOOD.
2:11 PM — Ackerman seems to be wanting the money back from AIG’s general fund. No, the munnies must be extracted from the rectums of the very motherfuckers who ran AIGFP. Why does this Ackerman not seem to get that?
2:14 PM — Hmm, good question! How involved has the Fed been involved in all this biz since the fall? Liddy cites a “cadre” of people from Morgan Stanley and Ernst & Young. Basically, he says that the Federal Reserve has been very involved, so this is all their fault as well. Ha ha ha, AIG has been in constant communication with the NY Federal Reserve and Treasury and even members of Congress, sharing information and consulting on big decisions and all sorts of stuff! EVERYONE IS GUILTY OF EVERYTHING.
2:19 PM — Dude wants a list of who was at those meetings and what was discussed.
2:20 PM — A little bird just flew into your editor’s window. SYMBOLISM.
2:23 PM — If the Federal Reserve Board knew about these bonuses, says this tax guy, “then they should be called to account.” This current questioner guy sounds like a radio show host. He has that kind of voice. Brad Sherman, of California. Remember earlier in the day, when the camera panned to Michele Bachmann and her attractive assistant, and it just lingered there for a while? There’s nobody pretty to look at anymore, in this hearing.
2:27 PM — AIG will get stuck with first-year public defenders instead of $1000-an-hour criminal laywers, or something, if they get accused of criminal wrongdoing.
2:28 PM — In the absence of attractive faces or scintillating expressions of outrage, this liveblog is officially adjourned, good night.
Obligatory Barney Frank joke.
It shouldn’t be the worst afternoon ever for him! He’s got a SHIT TON of money to look forward to when he gets home!
i love barney.
Barney talking about all these debts is confusing me. The pink bitches are annoying me. When do they start bending AIG executives over desks and letting the angry horde have at them?
I think I missed something. Did the AIG guy give steroids to Roger Clemens?
None of this ever would have happened in the Second Life Economy. Just sayin’.
if the right has the well, right, to publish doctor’s names, faces and addresses on web sites so they can be targeted by Xian hit men, then why can’t we know what these fuckers names are?
Barney Frank hates seeing female mammary glands - after Kanjorski told them to remove the signs:
“Mr. Kanjorkski, I’m just glad no one was wearing the message on a t-shirt.”
Barney Frank was for pre-existing contracts before he was against them.
I think this is GREAT! It’s like watching some guy who helped rob a bank, and got rich doing it, saying, “it’s really a shame, and I know a lot of people were hurt and everything, but see…I didn’t actually TAKE the money, and you can’t ask for it back from the people that tok it because it would hurt more people, or at least make them feel bad, so…well really, it’s just a shame!”.
When does the tarring and feathering begin? That’s the part I’ll TiVo.
Here’s what should have been the first question:
“You asked for 50 per cent back? Um… Why didn’t you ask them to give it ALL back? What kind of douchebaggery is that?”
Why has no one asked this question?
RAGE!
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!
Yes. It is getting very old.
Sorry Sara(h), The War is relevant. $125 Billion of our tax dollars have gone missing in Iraq. AIG is a sad parody of accountability rage.
Names, addresses and GPS coordinates, please.
ProfessorJukes: “Why has no one asked this question?”
Because no one has the integrity of the wonkeratti.
A million six hundred trillion million? What is that ‘bama dude talking about? A new defense project?
Who is this Rethug Scott Garrett that just gave Mr. Big at AIG a public blow job? Thank you for your service to this country blah, blah, blah. And he’s on the f*****g Banking Committee! Would someone just tweeze that ONE hair left on Garrets head? I am so f*****g *&%&!@ pissed! Ahhhhhhhhhh!
groove:
Geithner & Summers did it:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/17/dodd/index.html
It’s important to grill this guy about $165 million in obligatory retention payments that he had no hand in creating rather than grilling the Merrill CEO about $3 billion of discretionary bonus payments made with TARP funds because 165 is a lot bigger number than 3. Go get ‘em Barney.
Funny how Dr, liberator, secret president in hiding, and keeper of all things red-necky, Ron Paul, predicted all of this months ago when we were all blinded by Hope. How’s that worthless paper money now, commies?
Fox n Fiends: The obvious solution is to send AIG to Iraq, since as we all know, two wrongs = right.
It’s getting ugly.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_351601.html
Relax, Son. We’re with AIG!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VvGW98D3XA
Ooh, old guy offering to help just like stranger with candy. Run, LIddy, before they cut your ‘nads off.
Dammit, I want Justice. I want Rep. Rorschach to do the interrogations.
He’s doing a good job. He’s not the reason why AIG is the way it is. He’s trying to save U$.
Admits AIG is using the Government in a Ponzi scheme in 5, 4, 3, 2…
Credit default swap not a bad idea? Fuck him. Now I’m in favor of castrating this dude and everyone like him.
Is that a roll of ill-gotten quarters in his pocket?
I have been thinking of setting up a blog that would list the names, addresses, photographs, etc. of the “Financial Giants” at AIG, Merrill, Bear Sterns, etc.
Along with the amounts of money they made, or got out of the public.
And maybe include pictures of their loved ones; where their kids go to school; the make, model and license plate number of their cars, etc.
So that, when you were surfing the web in the wee hours of the morning just before “The Bank” forecloses on your house, you’ll know who to go to . . . thank.
I figure what with the sponsorship money I would make from the obvious advertisers — Remington and Mossberg shotguns; Glock; S&W; ammonium nitrate fertilizer companies — I could make back some of my retirement money.
Best of all, it would be 1st Amendment protected speech.
(If any steals this idea, cut me in for a percentage, would you? Otherwise I might have to . . . thank YOU.)
If only this picture accompanied “George W. Bush Shows Some Dignity” …
I’m laying aside a little rage for the next conservative prick who accuses me of ruining society when I throw forty cents into somebody’s cup on the street
“trillion” -> “million million” - so as not to confuse some Brits, as our “trillion” is 10^12 (a million million) whereas a dated Brit meaning is 10^18.
If Nadya “OctoMom” Suleman joined Code Pink, it would create an Attention Whore Vortex that would suck us all into a super massive black hole so powerful that nothing, including electromagnetic radiation (e.g. visible light), could escape its pull.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: …if our economy was based on the hoarding of precious metals and mystical herbs like WoW then wouldn’t be in the mess either!
Atheist Nun: Suleman is black? With a Muslim name like that? Shouldn’t she be -al Nadya “OctoMom X” Suleman then?
Uncle Glenny: What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t know math was required for this liveblog.
But while I’m on the subejct: What’s a trunch, or whatever it is they’re saying? The steamer trunk they use to haul the cash to the bankers who, wisely, don’t trust banks?
…Barney Frank should have wore a t-shirt with “I’m just hear for the water-boarding!!!” written on it, to the hearings!
…the dogs, already! Where are the baying, slavering dobermans? Why are they waiting, when those dogs are so so hungry?
Neilist:…“OctoMom X”?
Nah, then she sounds like some kind of superhero/villain. And I can only imagine what her superpower would be!!!
Wow — he lets some Congressoids with puny 6-figure salaries be mean to him (but not with sticks or anything) for an afternoon, then he gets to split $82.5 million with his BFFs? I’d sign up for that half-day’s work . . . if I hated my country as much as executives and traders do.
Executors and traitors? Now we’re talkin’.
…I want a refund! This doesn’t look anything like what was on the FLYER
This hearing needed more cowbell.
Neilist: I think you might be confused… “OctoMom X” was a character in the Marvel Comics™ special issue #1697: Spiderman VS. The Nation Of Islam. It gets pretty tedious because Peter Parker’s Spidey Sense starts tingling every time he smells a bean pie.
Nope, I got rage to spare. Want some?
Latest iteration of story via digg:
I offer a modest suggestion - make retention bonuses contingent on SEC review of standards and practices. EG, are they worth retaining?
Are there not going to be baying, slavering dobermans?
LOVE that we can’t decide if it’s Liddy or Libby, million, billion or trillion. Clinky clinky, mommypoo needs a big fat drinky winky.
A little bird just flew into your editor’s window. SYMBOLISM.
Today, we are all little birds with an unfortunate direction sense. *WHOMP*
Retention bonuses are called retention bonuses because they can be RETAINED, you libtard socialist moran Barney Frank. Even Jim Bunning knows that.
http://www.newyorker.com/images/2009/03/09/cartoons/090309_cartoon_g_a14048_p465.gif
To celebrate the AIG employees innovative capitalism in creating a wealth reduction securitization fund, pay the AIG bonuses in Ameros.
I’d like to anally invaded those AIG fucks ala Vlad the Impaler
I get the unfortunate feeling that this is just a dog and pony show - a few millions to distract the angry mob while the trillions are ducking out the back door with some defense contractor or maybe Goldman Sachs.
I can’t believe anyone asked… is the bird okay?
DustBowlBlues: “tranch”.. it is how the ‘bailout’ was cut into pieces…30 Billion here, 30 Billion in a couple o’ months, &c. The next 30 Billion we give them is another tranch of the whole pie.
might as well be a trench…throw the money in a ditch and cover it, then hope it grows-composts-turns into a giant beanstalk to the lost city of gold. Exactly the same.
thanks for the live blog, Sarah!
So some of them may voluntarily return the bonuses? I guess it all depends on how difficult it is to gin up $1M+ of fake receipts each for their expense reports.
DustBowlBlues: Math isn’t really required; I’m explaining why he talks funny. Although the fact that our Trillion is what used to be called Billion might explain some things…
Tranche just means portion, it’s to make outsiders feel insecure. Although as someone pointed out, “trench” where the money gets shoveled and buried seems apropos.
AngryBlakGuy: JESUS CHRIST DUDE. They really knew how to torture back in the good ol’ days.
AngryBlakGuy:
DO NOT WANT.
I told you guys that Secretary Fivehead would be a bad choice at Treasury, but no, you were all too busy drawing hearts and flowers and Mrs. Tim Geithner on your notebooks.
PROTIP: your average modern-day ultra-lightweight-alloy lamp-post may be unable to hold the weight of these obese future-stealing bastards, so for a more reliable alternative, I recommend using telephone-poles: each pole can easily hold several ripe “rope-apples” without breaking under the strain.