The Scapegoat Game
You guys aren't going to like this, but you know who I feel sorry for? Edward Liddy. That's right. He's the guy the government appointed to run AIG after Hank Greenberg and his gang set it up to crash and burn. Today, Greenberg popped up on television like a vicious Mini-Me to pile on the dead bunny.
Greenberg left in a scandal in 2005 after setting up the business unit that got AIG into all of its trouble. You know that operation. The Financial Products group that came up with all those cute derivatives backed with now-toxic instruments. And here he is this morning, jabbering away like a wise elder statesman. Pfui.
This was only slightly worse than the drubbing that Mr. Liddy took at the hands of the suddenly irate congressmen in Washington on Wednesday. Many of our senior legislators had good points to make, no question about it. The situation is dire, and certainly subject to Federal review, as it was years ago when the SEC was supposed to be regulating the industry. Most of the politicians acquitted themselves well. But at times the hectoring got out of hand, to the point where you might have thought, if you were a cynical type of person, that these members of Congress were trying to come up with the quintessential sound bite that would land them on the evening news. Sure enough, at the end of the day, it was the showboat from Massachusetts whose "have you no shame!" diatribe did get the most airtime. I guess he knows his business, too.
Of course, Edward Liddy isn't blameless. He obviously made some very bad decisions. But he is only the last in a series of managers -- both at AIG and elsewhere -- who has done so. It's pretty evident noxious stuff has been going on everywhere for years. The culture of compensation of which he was a part is so deeply ingrained in corporate culture now that even Tim Geithner, the guy who is supposed to oversee the bailouts, didn't pop up a huge red flag when he first heard about AIG's contractual obligations to its disgraced lunkheads.
Worst of all, for the poor doofus on the stand, is the thought that you've got to know is running through his head as everybody is saying nasty things about his mother: "I'm doing all this for $1.00 a year."
Man. I would do it for $5.00. As long as it came with a guaranteed bonus.
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I don't totally blame Liddy either...
I do question comments I've heard from various people on their objection to the government coming in and voiding the contract between the employer, AIG and their employees. What I'd like to know is what the difference is between the government coming between the contracts of AIG and their execs and telling auto unions receiving bailout money to renegotiate contracts with their members. Do we see a difference between AIG with their execs from auto unions with their members? A contract is a contract, whether its AIG or auto unions... So hasn't the government already come between contracts given to employees?
If some guys steals $40 from a pizza parlor, we arrest him, "plea" him out, send him to jail or prison. The right-wing, the white men who run everything, scream for law enforcement when it's non-whites who are getting nailed.
But when it comes to business and politics and Wall Street, it turns out that those same white men, the educated ones, the "connected" ones, are the biggest criminals of all. It's like they wake up every day and ask: What crime can I commit today? Whose money can I steal? How many lies can I tell and get away with it. What pensions can I defraud?
These white men don't care one bit that they have destroyed people's lives. People have lost their savings, their retirements, their jobs, their homes. These people may have destroyed our country, ended this brief experiment in democracy. And they don't care one bit. They are sociopaths, these privileged white men, racist, sexist, believing they are superior to everyone else, should take what they want, using women without any consideration, disregarding their children, walking all over their neighbors. No, I don't feel sorry for any of them.
Start fresh...get rid of all of the insolvent banks. sell whagtever assetts they have to the private sector.
Indicte, prosecute, regulate and begin again
First of all, if they can "retain" him for $1/year, imagine who they can "retain" for 250,000 times that. a bunch more idiot mercenaries.
Secondly, you know who you SHOULD feel sorry for? the 11% of californians (and rising) who have lost their livelihoods and are being forced into homelessness and poverty because of jerks like Liddy. save your pity for people who have done nothing and whose lives are now destroyed.
Get some perspective, Man.
See Fortune's Stanley Bing's Profile
What if you feel pity for everybody?
Still want to defend Liddy with the current $220 million revelation?
He was defending $165 million knowing that number was not correct.
Willful deceit and withholding of information. This crook isn't worth the dollar he is being paid.
AIG will probably claim it was a mistake when and if they are asked about why these additional bonus receivers were not on Cuomo's subpoena requested list.
See Fortune's Stanley Bing's Profile
I don't think I was defending Liddy. I was just not piling on the rabbit.
The CT AG says the amount paid out to AIG employees as bonuses is closer to 220 million.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032100822.html?hpid=topnews
When the Thieves, excuse me Executives blame the regulators for all this it's like a thief claiming it's all the cops fault that he robbed that house. I can just see it in court:" Your honor, If there had been more cops to catch me I wouldn't have robbed that house". That's the defense their useing? My god that's worse than the Republicans and their selective amnesia.
Liddy has been in the business for a long time and was involved in AIG before becoming the CEO. If he had never been involved in the financial industry before I might give him some slack. No one in the industry is blameless. He has become the face of an industry that has caused and will cause many people to suffer. Trust me he is not suffer with his $1 a year salary because he made out like a bandit for many years as part of a corrupt industry. Feeling sorry for him seems a bit of a stretch to me. Taking his ego down a notch is not going to lose him his home or cause him any financial hardship. Save your pity for the real victims of the this financial mess not the likes of Liddy who has enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life without working another day.
LIddy is a corporate suit. A hack. A liar. A thief.
Anybody who rises to the top of that cup o java is guilty by association. I am pure Main St.
I've been taking it in the shorts by multi national corporations all my life. So have the rest of you.
The GOP has always tried to enlist us to their cause - telling us our interests are aligned. The reason for 'privitized social security' was to get us all on board the multi national express train. They wanted to make us believe that corporations were our FRIEND.... our benefactor.... and keeper of our trust.
Great fortunes are not earned - they are stolen. Period.
I"ve been in business long enough to know that hard entrepreneurial work and talent brings modest success.
I don't agree with your comments.
Liddy is paid one dollar to break up and sell AIG.
Bigger fish to fry than the bonus issue. (Same can be said of entire Obama administration who knew of these payments for months).
So sorry life hasn't turned out well for you. Good luck with the attitude that fortunes cannot be earned.
You are obviously in the wrong business or a lackluster employee to have the attitude that entrepreneurial work brings modest success.
Tell that to the guys at Google, Microsoft or any successful company.
It seems like you are alternating between a fetal position and rage. I feel sorry for you. Its sad to
I agree.
Amen. Modest success. There's never been anything wrong with that, but it's made to seem like you're nothing but a chump. I'm the target market for the Hannities and Limbaughs, I've always been an independent, small business man, and the only thing I feel for those who claim to pander to me is contempt.
BEFORE Reagan and his voodoo economics CEOs made about 40 times what their workers made, NOW it's over 200 times, and the net result---the economy is CRASHING because the only thing that trickles down is crap!
Nixon did something that would've gotten him shot if done today, enacted a wage-price freeze.
Obama has to have the chutzpah to do something equally as daring...a CEO wage rollback to pre-Reagan limits. All the limbaughnistas will be screaming bloody murder, but IF the people are hipped to the fact that NO PERSON is worth 200 times more than they are, then the listing ship called America can be righted again.
And maybe people should send Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" to all these business bigwigs who think they DESERVE to be treated like they're bigger than Dylan & the Rolling Stones!
All CEO's appear to have made some really bad decisions. This is no excuse as they believe their entitlements are due to them. They claim they MUST retain the best and the brightest as justification to these huge bonuses (or what ever they label them as) The best and the brightest have no room for mistakes so greed has blurred their vision. This is mafia style robbery we are being held too. They all need to be held accountable for the damage they have caused. Serious damage has been caused by these greedy SOB's and they need to pay!
My goodness Stanley our enlightened citizenry need a show to divert them from asking the really tough questions.
So, when OctoMom will no longer do as diversion, we have a good ole witch hunt.
That way, no one asks where were the regulators? What crackpot theories got us into this mess? And the focus is on the molehill not the mountain.
And a bit of feigned outrage.
The rubes fall for it every time.
Lest one forgets, Liddy sat on the Board of Directors and approved the actions of the CEOs. Let's not forget that the Boards of Directors met 9 times and received $30,000 for each of those 9 meetings.
I would agree that attacking Liddy is not the way to go. Who and where are the culprits who set up AIG into near bankruptcy? Who and where are the culprits besides the Board of Directors who set up bonus contracts not based on performance? They were in a win win situation. If someone received "Retention Bonuses" then how coulf eleven of them we know about still get the bonus and leave? That "Retention Bonus" begins to seem like hush money.
I've always looked forward to reading your comments, since you seem to have been the only voice of reason in the casino-capitalism horde for a very long time.
I can't help but think what Naomi Klein has so aptly concluded in her recent book, "The Shock Doctrine". The powerful (take your pick of the villains from the internet conspiracy theory diaspora - The Bilderberg group, the council/committee of 300, Illuminati, the Fed - http://www.whale.to/b/300.html) have always used opportunities like these ,where the society in general is near some sort of utter catastrophe, to grab more power. The "opportunities", in most cases, are created by the powerful or are a simple manifestation of their previous actions - like a Casino, the house always wins!
The true question to ask is: Does the premise that the "free market" must offer both the buyers and sellers the same information/playing field hold true?
Somehow, I have a sneaky suspicion that it won't be the case Mr. Schwartz!
Looka like the tin-foil hat makers are going gangbusters in this economy.
See Fortune's Stanley Bing's Profile
Who?
People are ready to blame anyone that they often blame the wrong people and are distracted from the real problems and the people who do deserve scorn.
This week I've seen far too many, on here and elsewhere, willing to go after those who are the ones trying to clean up the mess, forgetting about those who actually made it in the first place.
I did not hear much about Paulson, bush, the former managers of these companies that were responsible for running their businesses into the ground or the actual politicians, like Gramm, who set out to totally dismantle all regulations and turned a blind eye to the goings on.
Instead I see the anger and rage directed at the ones, the middle managers of these companies or even the secretaries, the new administration, the new president, Liddy who was put there to sort the huge mess out.
I wish people would quit looking for scapegoats everywhere but, where the real culprits are and stop bashing those who are trying to untangle the unholy mess.
These problems go back for decades. They certainly precede AIG, Graham and Paulson bear a lot of blame but it's not even just them. There was a terrible crisis and a turning point in 1979, and we blamed the wrong people and took the wrong course. We spent our way out of a recession, let loose the dogs of war and started to dismantle the safeguards from the New Deal because it would generate a quick buck in the short run. Reagan led the charge but Democrats fell in line, Clinton drank the kool-aid and we all went along for a simple reason: it worked. Or it seemed to.
We've all acted like kids spending grandpa's will, and the vast bulk of us have danced to whatever tune the piper's called without asking who'll pay the bill. We bought into .coms because we wanted to, we bought telecom stocks because they couldn't lose, we financed mergers and acquisitions because they made "synergistic" companies, we bought houses because real estate never goes down.
We were wrong. We. All of us. I didn't invest in the market, I didn't buy Nortel, or Amazon, or Google. I've lost nothing. But I'm still screwed, because my customers did, and I have no business because they have no money.
We need to take the first step: It's not THEIR fault. It's OUR fault. We're a nation. We need to act like one.
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