Former AIG CEO Sues Claiming Taxpayers Need To Pony Up $25 Billion More

[Donnachaidh]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/11/22/374472/former-aig-ceo-sues-claiming-taxpayers-need-to-pony-up-25-billion-more/

For many years, insurance behemoth AIG was so poorly managed that the American taxpayer eventually had to invest nearly $70 billion in the incompetently run company to prevent its collapse from taking the entire U.S. economy along with it (much of this money has since been repaid). Former AIG CEO Maurice Greenberg, however, thinks that the American people haven’t done enough to protect his massive fortune, so his company filed a lawsuit demanding even more taxpayer money:

Starr International, the company run by the former head of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), has filed a $25 billion lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that the takeover of the insurance company at the height of the financial crisis was unconstitutional.

When the government took an 80 percent interest in AIG during the financial crisis, it did so without “due process or just compensation,” in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, according to the suit filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

The unbridled arrogance of this lawsuit is astonishing. While the wealthy insurance baron is correct that the Constitution does not allow private property to be taken “without just compensation” — a requirement that generally requires the government to pay a property owner the fair market value for their property — his legal complaint can be rebutted with just one chart:



More at the link --

Someone put this asshole in JAIL. :grr:

[Ship of Fools]

1. I just don't get these people. Just.don't.get.them.

[OhioChick]

2. Screw Greenberg n/t

[sakabatou]

3. Fuck you, Greenberg and the high horse you rode on.

[pa28]

4. It's arrogant but he might have a case.

He's arguing the New York Fed did not insist on haircuts for the financial instruments AIG sold to Goldman and the big financial institutions. The result was a much bigger bailout and larger loss of equity in the company for Greenberg (nevermind AIG would not exist at absent intervention).

This is what can happen when you allow the conflict of interest at the New York fed to continue. Bankers can bail themselves out with public equity and leave taxpayers on the hook for liabilities with no say from congress.

[hifiguy]

5. This piece of walking asswipe

should be given the Mussolini/Ceaucescu treatment, and that would be too good for him.

[meow2u3]

9. ALL the greedy CEOs who brought down the economy

should be Ceaucescu'd.

[hifiguy]

10. I will drink to that!

:toast:

[Initech]

6. Greed greed greed greed - that's all they care about!!

[Rex]

7. What a crock of shit! Anyone that believe a company will 'take down

the economy' so MUST be bailed out, doesn't understand capitalism very well. We live in a plutocracy now - by corporations FOR corporations and the greedy assholes that run them.

[Octafish]

8. Such ingratitude, after all the times the US taxpayers' rep.s have saved his scrawny hide.

A top insurance company as the new Enron?

An accounting probe at AIG worries Wall Street, and involves some of America's richest men.

By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
April 1, 2005

NEW YORK – American business is facing yet another major scandal involving more accounting shenanigans.
But, this scandal has the potential to cause tsunami-sized damage: It involves a highly respected insurance company, American International Group (AIG) - which is part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average - which has now admitted to $1.7 billion in improper accounting. And, it has enveloped some legends in the financial arena: Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, forced out as chairman of AIG, and Warren Buffet, the Omaha stock market guru, who will be questioned about his possible involvement.

Because AIG is so massive and important to the financial world, regulators will have to tread carefully. The company's main business is providing reinsurance, that is, it insures insurance companies. This helps the industry to spread its risk among many large and financially sound companies so a single event does not become a financial disaster for one company.

Also, because of AIG's huge size, lawyers don't think the government will bring a criminal charge against the company as it did for Arthur Andersen, Enron's accountant. The criminal charge was a death sentence for the accountant.

"There is an increased reluctance to bring criminal charges that ultimately have the effect of killing a company that otherwise employs a lot of innocent people and has lots of value to it," says Michael Gass, an expert on SEC enforcement at Palmer & Dodge, a Boston law firm. "Instead, there is an increased focus on the individuals responsible."

SNIP...

"I would be shocked if nothing criminal comes out of this," says Mr. Gass. "The concept that there is a $1.7 billion fraud on the stock holders and not a criminal action is ridiculous."

CONTINUED...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0401/p03s01-usju.html

Funny. Nothing criminal did come of that. And now the criminals want more.

[Dawson Leery]

11. Pardon me for saying: These God Damn Bastards came to the government and people

and begged to be bailed out! Now they are claiming it was wrong. :wtf:
:mad:

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Why should we pay to maintain him in a comfy jail cell?

Drop him in Somalia, equipped only with a loincloth and a begging-bowl.

[Donnachaidh]

13. I don't have a problem with that at all. n/t