and Goldman Sachs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN1548789520090316?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

93 billion to European Banks but Cuomo wants to know which AIG "employees" received 165 million in funds????? Can you say "smoke and mirrors". This administration is kinda inept it seems.

Linke article doesn't concern any payments to European banks during this administration. Who are you blaming. Give em a year. then you'll have articles you can blame them for. They can't fix this problem and they will not look good whatever they do.

Which "this administration" is Cuomo a part of? Last I checked he was AG of New York State, not a federal prosecutor. Do you know what his jurisdiction is to follow what kinds of claims?

Also, if AIG is contractually obligated to pay European banks for obligations it owes them, then it's contractually obligated. And failure to pay might be what would make it go under and endanger the entire fiscal system. I don't know if that's true or not, but it might be a good idea to find out before making claims of incompetence.

This may be a bit of thread deviation. It seems that Cuomo is taking the same path to the governorship that Spitzer took -- hardass investigation and prosecution in the financial sector. He may well succeed.

Pretty funny listening to Chris Dodd rail against the $165 million bonuses for AIG when Chris Dodd authored the legislation that protected such bonuses. While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an
exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009 -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.
Tidy since Dodd was AIG largest recipient of campaign contributions and AIG's home office is in Dodd's state, CT. Now Congress wants to put a 91% tax on these bonuses? Something is fishy here.

First, it would be helpful to provide citations so that the sources can be verified. I found one at the NY Times.

Second, Dodd's amendment doesn't appear to me to be AIG-specific. There are good (conservative) reasons for government not to interfere with contracts already in place; who is going to work for these companies if the government can step in at any time and say "Sorry, we've decided you're not getting squat"? If government wants to set the terms going forward, that's another thing. I do think it's terrible that the folks who got us into this mess may get large sums of money. But I don't think that making the preexisting pay agreements of everyone at these large firms subject to the vagaries of the government is going to help the situation. (Also, it's important to keep in mind that the pay structure in the financial services industry is not like most jobs. Many if not most of them get most of their pay in "bonuses" instead of salary to the extent that the bonuses take the place of salary. I think that should change, and hopefully it will, but unfortunately that's the system we have now.)

Second, if Dodd tried protecting AIG because the home office is in Dodd's state, then it's an unfortunate but natural outcome of a representative trying to protect his own. If the rest of Congress wanted to shoot down the exception, it could have done so.

Third, if he did it in response to campaign contributions, then it is pretty darn unseemly. All the more reason to support public campaign financing; then we wouldn't have these problems. Campaigns can be paid for by our money or by AIG, Exxon, and ADM. Got to pick one, because no one's money is not an option.

And if he's switching sides in response to public outrage, then, well, welcome to politics 101.

Daniel's points are quite good and well stated as usual. Congress would do well to let this go -- no company is likely to make a similar move in the foreseeable future, given this raised stink. The proposed tax seems unconstitutionally ex post facto.

As outrageous as bonuses are at AIG (and they are) they are not what the congress needs to be focusing on right now. The real unresolved issue is how to sell off the parts of AIG to enable the company to get the funds to pay back the 170 Billion to the US Gov (you and me)

To date, no significant sales of AIG have been made, and I don't see any definitive plans in place to do so. Quibbling about $165 million in bonus is not going to get back $170 billion in loans, which are in serious jeopardy unless a definitive plan is in place for recovery of those funds. This is why the Federal Government is only going to screw this up even more as they have a poor lack of direction.

Don't worry the wizard of smart, Tim Geithner, is on the job! (sarcasm)

I agree that the bonuses, as ridiculous as they appear to be, are trivial compared to the main issues. However, I don't know enough to evaluate the probability of recovering whatever portion of the loans one cares to name. I never expected us taxpayers to come out even; I thought the justification was that we'd come out even further behind without the loans.

As for alicex4's comments about Dodd and AIG, Dodd was on Hardball today and was asked the very same questions that she was asking. I'll edit this post to include a link to the transcript when it becomes available.

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Here's the Hardball link. Dodd is towards the end. And you can hear an NPR piece on Dodd from All Things Considered.

Personally, I'd kind of like to give them their bonuses...and then fire them all.