http://MOXNews.com/January 18, 2010 MSNBC
Before the Fall, AIG Payouts Went to Washington As long as everyone's talking today about AIG's payouts to its executives and foreign banks, let's remember the payouts AIG has made over the years to politicians. In the last 20 years American International Group (AIG) has contributed more than $9 million to federal candidates and parties through PAC and individual contributions. That's enough to rank AIG on OpenSecrets.org's Heavy Hitters list, which profiles the top 100 contributors of all time.
Over time, AIG hasn't shown an especially partisan streak, splitting evenly the $9.3 million it has contributed since 1989. In the last election cycle, though, 68 percent of contributions associated with the company went to Democrats. Two senators who chair committees charged with overseeing AIG and the insurance industry, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), are among the top recipients of AIG contributions. Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee and has collected more money from AIG in his congressional career than from any other company--$91,000. And with more than $280,000, AIG has been the fourth largest contributor to Dodd, who chairs the Senate's banking committee. President Obama and his rival in last year's election, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), are also high on the list of top recipients.
AIG has been a personal investment for lawmakers, too. Twenty-eight current members of Congress reported owning stock in AIG in 2007, worth between $2.5 million and $3.3 million. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), one of the richest members of Congress, was by far the biggest investor in AIG, with stock valued around $2 million.
Last year AIG and its subsidiaries spent about $9.7 million on federal lobbying, or about $53,000 for every day Congress was in session in 2008. The company's spending on advocacy last year was down from an all-time high of $11.4 million spent on lobbying in 2007.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/03/before-the-fall-aig-payouts-we.html Geithner's New York Fed Pushed AIG To Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret (READ THE AIG EMAILS) Update: This post was updated at 2:15 p.m. to reflect new information obtained by the Huffington Post regarding an ongoing investigation into these matters.
An arm of the Federal Reserve, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told bailed-out insurance giant AIG to withhold key details from the public about overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs.
The sordid tale unfolds in a series of e-mails between the company and the New York Fed obtained by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and first publicly disclosed by Bloomberg News.
The matter is the subject of an "ongoing review" by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), communications director Kristine Belisle said in an e-mail to the Huffington Post. SIGTARP is headed by Neil M. Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor.
Taxpayers have committed about $182 billion to AIG. The under-regulated firm developed and sold complicated derivatives products without having adequate capital in place if those bets went bad, which they eventually did. The firm nearly single-handedly wrecked the entire financial system.
After the firm was given a taxpayer-funded backstop, one of its most controversial acts was to repay banks at 100 cents on the dollar for what was by that point nearly worthless insurance the banks had bought from AIG, known as credit-default swaps.
A brutal report issued in November by a government watchdog disclosed that AIG had actually been trying to negotiate better terms with the banks until - guess what? -- the New York Fed stepped in. The report held Geithner personally responsible, and led to renewed questions about his fitness for the job.
Now it turns out Geithner's people told AIG to delete references on draft regulatory filings to the sweetheart deals. And AIG then excluded any mention of them in its December 2008 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, keeping the information hidden from investors and the public.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/07/geithners-new-york-fed-to_n_414449.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
