Tag: AIG

WASHINGTON-- On Tuesday, the Senate voted in a landslide to approve the Audit the Fed amendment to Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform proposal. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the author of the amendment, has directed the Government Accountability Office to publish a report on the Federal Reserve’s books by Dec. 1, 2010, reviewing in a way that “does not interfere with monetary policy” but does let the American people know the names of the recipients of the more than $2 trillion in taxpayer assistance doled out by the nation's central banking system.

The grasping AIG Financial Division execs who brought the firm to its knees and helped send the global economy spiraling only to receive federal...

Andrew Ross Sorkin takes a shot at explaining why we have to pay those AIG bonuses today in The New York Times. Sorkin explains that he knows it’s not a popular view to even try to justify the bonuses — but it’s the new reality of how the business world works in post-bailout America. And it’s all far worse than you might think.

What a weekend, wherein we were treated to more of the same from the beloved banking class. Turns out one of the continuing lessons of the global financial catastrophe is that if you're a high-finance worker -- say, one of the big brains at AIG's infamous Financial Products Group -- and you just keep demanding bonuses no matter how bad you are at your job, everyone will simply agree that you deserve them and that, in fact, there's no legal way not to pay you -- your million-dollar "bonus" is really your "salary" and apparently, that is like a birthright.

When the government bailed out Bear Stearns in March, plenty of people on Main Street complained it wasn’t fair to save an investment bank and do nothing to help homeowners. Imagine how they feel now.