The Treasury Department claimed earlier today that the latest scandal surrounding Tim Geithner's sweetheart deals to AIG doesn't matter, because AIG is on track to pay back the loan. Even if it were true, that response is still highly offensive, because it assumes that a few billion dollars of Fed money--rather than, say, a crashed economy and government collusion to protect the people who crashed the economy--is all that made people upset about the bailouts.
But what's more, the Treasury Department's claim that AIG will pay back the full loan is completely false. The New York Fed forgave $25 billion of the loan to take an ownership stake in AIG that meant no actual control. From a letter Representative Alan Grayson sent to Ben Bernanke:
The New York Fed's entire loan was $25 billion. On top of low interest payments, no limits on executive pay, and other sweetheart deals, the New York Fed allowed AIG to be forgiven for 30% of the entire loan for utterly meaningless concessions in return. So, even though the Treasury Department's response to the latest scandal would have been offensive even if it were true, it isn't true at all.
Oh, and here are some more results of Geithner's decision to allow AIG to regulate itself. Most of the bonuses AIG execs promised to give back in order to avoid legislative action were not actually given back (hat-tip reader JD):
When word spread earlier this year that American International Group had paid more than $165 million in retention bonuses at the division that had precipitated the company's downfall, outrage erupted, with employees getting death threats and President Obama urging that every legal avenue be pursued to block the payments.
New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo threatened to publicize the recipients' names, prompting executives at AIG Financial Products to hastily agree to return about $45 million in bonuses by the end of the year.
But as the final days of 2009 tick away, a majority of that money remains unpaid. Only about $19 million has been given back, according to a report by the special inspector general for the government's bailout program.
I am angry about this not just as someone who finds the policies involved abhorrent, and not just as someone who has taken a really big hit because of the Great Recession. I am pissed about all of this as a Democrat. Watching the Obama administration and center-right Democrats in Congress continue to collude with the financial services industry is sickening (even apart from the bailout, check out the outcomes of the mortgage reform, student loan reform, and financial regulation fights). They are pissing away our generational opportunity to really help people, and seriously imperiling the Democratic Party at the ballot box in the process.
As Natasha reminded me earlier today, we worked as hard as we could to put these people in charge, and these are the results we are getting. It turns my stomach. What a waste.
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