Writing on Salon.com:
One of the bizarre aspects of Secretary Geithner's claims not to have known about AIG bonuses until recently is that these bonuses have been the subject of intense controversy for months. Numerous members of Congress, such as Rep. Elijah Cummings, have been pressuring AIG since at least November, in the form of numerous letters, for details on AIG's retention bonus plan....Indeed.
[...]
That AIG was scheduled to make millions of dollars in bonus payments has been public knowledge for many months -- since well before Geithner pressured Chris Dodd to insert an exception into executive compensation limits for already-existing employment contracts.
[...]
Elijah Cummings was quite obviously very suspicious about what was going on at AIG for months, and he did everything possible to expose it. He also noted that AIG appeared to be in cahoots with Treasury and Federal Reserve officials over these retention bonuses and sought to determine if those officials really did approve these bonuses or if AIG mislead them about what they were. It's extremely difficult to understand how top financial officials could have been unaware of this issue when it was the subject of a rather intense political storm for months before it erupted in last week public.
It's hard to know which is worse: that Geithner was aware of all these issues and now claims he wasn't, or if, while at the New York Fed working on AIG's bailout, he somehow remained blissfully unaware of all of this. Given the relative amounts involved, the bonus payments themselves may not be significant in the scheme of things, but the window this scandal provides into the insider dealing, arrogance and corruption driving the trillions of dollars in public money flying around (and disappearing) certainly is significant. (emphasis mine)
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5 Comments:
It looks like Sec'y TG is about to take a fall - less than 90 days in office. Whoa. Is censure for Dodd on the horizon?
@ Anonymous (4:49) "Is censure for Dodd on the horizon?"
It depends on whether or not the media choose to keep the story "simple" (as is the media's want). But, since Dodd wasn't in the room when the decision was being made, I can't imagine that he would be found ultimately responsible.
As for Geithner (who, it seems, was in some room when this was going down, either at Treasury or at the NY Fed bank)... as we saw with Daschle, Obama doesn't like to throw people under the bus. Geithner would have to quit, I'm guessing.
DaCheckr,The unfolding AIG mess indicates Fed Reserve involvementis Benahke untouchable?
@ T Time (5:10) "Bernanke untouchable?"
The law says he can be removed by the President "for cause," whatever that means.
But I guess the question you're asking is would he. I dunno. Did Obama vote to confirm him in 2006?
Yes that was my qq... then again media reports at the time stated that only Kentucky Sentor Jim Bunning voted against the Bernanke confirmation. His rationale? Bernanke would fall in the steps of A Greenspan.
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