Bonuses For AIG

[elucidator]

@Scylla

…Upon further reading I saw precious little enhancement of those arguments by things like evidence or facts…

Facts are not offered by either antagonists, only testimony. “Fred” says “A!” and Tabibi says “Bullshit!” “A” is neither proved nor disproved, this is strictly a “he say/she say”. You are entirely correct to point out that Tabibi didn’t offer much proof. But, as far as that goes, neither did “Fred”.

Anyway, Tabibi writes for Rolling Stone, which isn’t as cool as it used to be, but still retains some residual chill. “Fred” was an executive VP for a radioactive financial company, hence not quite as cool as Alan Greenspan.

Case closed.

[Scylla]

Fred was actually there. Eyewitness. Case closed, indeed.

[elucidator]

Now, why didn’t O.J. think of that?

“Your Honor, I was there the whole time, and clearly saw that I didn’t do it!”

“Not guilty, case closed.”

[tagos]

@Scylla

Your proof?

His fucking title and his whining sack of shit of a letter.

And you believing him, there never being an issue on which you are not on the wrong side.

[tagos]

@tagos

His fucking title and his whining sack of shit of a letter.

And you believing him, there never being an issue on which you are not on the wrong side.

This is the reasoning behind the ‘bullshit’ claim and I find it a damn sight more compelling than the whining assertion that he ‘was not responsible’.

He’s Executive VP of the division that caused the problem. There’s no way at all the did not know and even if he did his position makes him responsible by definition.

And then there is this testimony

AIG chief executive Edward Liddy said moments ago that AIG’s risk-managers were “generally not allowed to go into Financial Products.”

Translation: AIG’s Financial Products division – the unit that sold more derivatives than AIG could back, nearly bringing down the company – was not subject to AIG’s own in-house risk-management scrutiny.

So his damn division, like evil-doers traditionally do, ‘feared the light’.

Prosecute and execute.

[Scylla]

looks like the intelligent discussion portion of this thread is over, so I’ll take my leave.

[tagos]

@Scylla

looks like the intelligent discussion portion of this thread is over, so I’ll take my leave.

At last. Now it can resume without your willful obfuscation of facts and trumpeting of self-evidently absurd whining as truth.

Door. Ass. Don’t.

Now does anyone else want to maintain that the Executive VP of the part of the organisation that destroyed the company not only had no idea whatsoever what was going on but somehow manages to have the expertise that demands mouths stuffed with gold to retain?

[gonzomax]

I suspect they all knew there were nasty things going down in AIg FP. They were willing to cover their eyes, hold their noses and spend the checks. I think that makes all management complicit. To suggest that the employees inside the division were ignorant of what was going on is way past believability. This was a huge operation. The numbers are staggering.
This was not a business accident. The 400 page contracts were written to obfuscate. They created un-neccessary complexity to cover up their deeds. This was not an innocent deal gone awry but a serious theft and manipulation on a grand scale.

[tagos]

@gonzomax

I suspect they all knew there were nasty things going down in AIg FP. They were willing to cover their eyes, hold their noses and spend the checks. I think that makes all management complicit. To suggest that the employees inside the division were ignorant of what was going on is way past believability. This was a huge operation. The numbers are staggering.
This was not a business accident. The 400 page contracts were written to obfuscate. They created un-neccessary complexity to cover up their deeds. This was not an innocent deal gone awry but a serious theft and manipulation on a grand scale.

As this indicates.

We’ve told you about allegations from AIGFP’s internal auditor, Joseph St. Denis, that the unit’s leader, Joseph Cassano deliberately thwarted St. Denis’ effort to do his job. And according to one expert we just spoke to, those allegations, if borne out, could put Cassano in serious jeopardy.

To review: In a letter to congressional investigators, St. Denis claimed that Cassano repeatedly prevented him from participating in the process in which AIGFP valued its assets – a crucial piece of the accounting puzzle St. Denis was hired to put together. According to St. Denis, Cassano told him in September 2007 (a time when evidence of the assets’ exposure to the subprime mortgage mess was mounting): “I have deliberately excluded you from the value of the [credit default swaps] because I was concerned you would pollute the process.” In addition, around the same time, Cassano berated St. Denis for pointing out accounting irregularities in a target company’s hedge accounts. Cassano created a new organizational structure for AIGFP which isolated him from AIG proper, significantly reducing his influence. St. Denis resigned soon after, citing Cassano’s moves as the reason.

More here

At congressional hearings Tuesday, a former internal AIG auditor wrote that he had early on raised concerns about being excluded from conversations about the valuation of the derivatives. The auditor, Joseph St. Denis, wrote in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that in early September 2007, he learned that AIG’s financial-products unit had been asked for billions of dollars in collateral related to derivatives it had sold.

“I was gravely concerned about this,” Mr. St. Denis wrote. The derivatives, known as credit-default swaps, protect buyers against the risk of default on other investments, and AIG believed the likelihood of making payouts was remote. Mr. St. Denis wrote that the valuation model of one of AIG’s trading partners “apparently indicated” that, in fact, the unit “was in a potentially material liability position.”

Crooks. The lot of them. If anyone believes the whining VP of the very unit auditors were prevented from checking knew nothing then I have a bridge going cheap for you.

[elucidator]

With what appears to be the exception of this St. Denis fellow. Wonder what kind of bonus and accolades he recieved? Employee of the Month, at the very least…

But “Fred” never heard about any of this, nor did any of the other innocent lambs abounding in the glen, frolicking amongst the daffodils and axolotls. Gosh, if only they had some hint, some clue that things were not as they should be! Alas, no.