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I’ve gone through only the first day of testimony from the AIG bailout trial, and we are already up to our third bombshell. The first witness called by the plaintiff, Starr International (an investment vehicle controlled by Hank Greenberg), was Scott Alvarez, general counsel for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Part of the testimony covered a discussion that took place late in the evening of September 15, the day Lehman declared bankruptcy in the wee hours of the morning. The topic was AIG. The participants included Alvarez, Timothy Geithner, Fed governors Don Kohn and Kevin Warsh, Ken Wilson, a...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department said Monday that it would sell its remaining ownership stake in insurance giant American International Group, effectively ending one of the largest bailouts of the financial crisis and turning a profit for taxpayers.</p> <p>The sale of the Treasury's remaining 234 million shares -- 15.9% of the company -- would add to the $15.1 billion in profit the government already has made on the bailout. The Treasury would still hold warrants in AIG after the stock sale.</p>

The Federal Reserve said taxpayers ended up earning $17.7 billion from the central bank's role in bailing out insurance giant American International Group Inc. On Thursday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the investment management arm of the Fed, sold the last of the asset-backed securities it acquired in the multi-step bailout of AIG, which the central bank engineered in 2008 with the Treasury Department. The government pledged more than $182 billion to AIG in exchange for a 92% ownership stake as it stepped in to keep the company from filing for bankruptcy and possibly causing a global meltdown...

AIG will convert outstanding preferred shares purchased by the US Treasury, into common stock. When the transaction is complete the Treasury will own 0.0 preferred shares and approximately 92% of AIG's common shares. "The company (AIG) said Wednesday that it expects Treasury will sell its shares of common stock over time, repaying the debt.

Here’s the latest in the question of the New York Fed, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the AIG bailout, as we’ve covered here at Big Government before (here and here). Last year, Iraq war vet Kevin Murray brought a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and Ben Bernanke (Murray vs. Geithner, et al) for its acquisition of AIG– a scheme that made the US taxpayer the world’s largest provider of Shariah-compliant insurance products. Lawyers David Yerushalmi and The Thomas More Law Center’s Robert Muise found, in the course of discovery, that that was just the tip of the iceberg. Yerushalmi and...

American International Group Inc.'s financial-products unit is on track to wind down by year end, but the controversy over bonuses that led to the loss of some key people may have made the process more costly for taxpayers, the unit's head said. AIG Financial Products head Gerry Pasciucco, in his first extensive public interview since the bonus dustup last month, said 20 of the unit's 370 employees quit amid the controversy, in which taxpayers and members of Congress decried retention payments to employees at the unit that helped topple the big insurer. While the drama over the $450 million bonus...

Here we see the current head of AIG Financial Products and former vice chairman of Morgan Stanley, Gerry Pasciucco, at an event called “Fiesta Cuba,” wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. [PHOTO AT LINK] The photo comes from this page at Fairfield County Look, where we learn more about the fun-filled evening: "Family Centers took a trip back in time where the sound of salsa music filled the air, La Tropicana was the place to be and relaxation was a way of life.The sights, sounds and tastes of 1940s-era Havana filled the air on the evening of Friday, June 6 for...

Congressional lawmakers are scrambling to think up creative ways to recover at least some of the $165 million in bonuses that bailed-out American International Group is paying executives -- but they could be their own worst enemy. Though Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is among those leading the charge on retrieving the bonuses, an amendment he added to the $787 billion stimulus bill last month created a roadblock to getting that money back. The amendment, meant to restrict executive pay for bailed-out banks, also included an exception for "contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009." This would seem to...

Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are - Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama.

The federal government has known for at least a year that 155 million dollars would need to be paid out to AIG executives in March of this year. Yet, government officials, including Barack Obama, have reacted with mock surprise and contrived indignation. Obama and his government cronies said that they would do everything possible to prevent the payment. However, in a classic Obama example of trying to un-ring the bell, the only way he can act was after the payments were already made. Why don't we each tell the IRS, run by the tax evader and deer in the headlights...

ABC's Jake Tapper is one of the few White House Press reporters who have not been swigging down the Presidential cool aid. He asks the questions that we want to know. Take the case of the AIG executive bonuses. Yesterday all hell broke loose when the news began to filter out a about the major green given out to AIG executives because of contractual obligations. Since the federal treasury has been forking over our tax dollars to AIG every few weeks since the first bailout, the questions arises, why didn't anyone know about the contractual bonuses before last week? Jake...

In "Uncle Shariah" in the Washington Times, December 16, Frank Gaffney details why AIG's nationalization is so worrisome: The insurance giant AIG has lately become the poster child for corporate risk-taking, mismanagement and greed. Its unimaginably large losses, rooted in insurance it extended to financial companies engaged in subprime mortgage-backed transactions, have destroyed both AIG's corporate reputation and balance sheet. Indeed, but for the fact that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - who during his days running Goldman Sachs had extensive ties to AIG - deemed the insurance firm "too large to fail," the company would surely have gone under by...