Free Republic

WASHINGTON, May 5 (Reuters) - Embattled insurer American International Group (AIG.N) paid some $454 million in previously undisclosed performance bonuses to employees for 2008, the company said in answers to questions from a U.S. lawmaker that released on Tuesday. It was not 165 Million ... More circuses and bread for the masses. We are being played.

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G. DEAR Mr. Liddy, It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context: I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or...

DEAR Mr. Liddy, It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context: I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the...

Does President Obama truly believe that he can castigate and condemn Wall Street on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then secure its cooperation on the other days of the week? Does he not understand that when he ignites a public furor over AIG bonuses and then incites Congress to pass a punitive tax, he sends shivers down the spines of every other corporate executive who makes a lot of money? Does he seriously believe that Wall Street investors will not worry that their winnings, should they join the Treasury as partners in risky investments, would be subject to public abuse,...

To use a current cliché, frequently deployed to humiliate bankers and CEOs: He doesn’t get it. Barack Obama, that is. He just doesn’t get it, and nor do millions of others who are following the U.S. President on his long destructive march against bankers and corporate executives for their alleged “recklessness and greed.” Those were the words Mr. Obama used yesterday when he instructed treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, to “pursue every legal avenue” to block the payment of $165-million in bonuses to employees of AIG Financial Products. News of the payments sparked a demagogic explosion in Congress and the U.S....