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Treasury’s Neel Kashkari on the AIG Bailout

November 10, 2008 RSS Feed Print

During a speech Monday, Neel Kashkari--the Treasury official overseeing the bailout--discussed the government’s recent actions regarding troubled insurance giant AIG.

I want to take a moment to discuss the actions we took today with American International Group (AIG) and how that relates to the TARP. The TARP's foremost purpose is to stabilize the financial system. We used TARP funds to purchase preferred stock in AIG, as part of a broader restructuring of their balance sheet, in coordination with the Federal Reserve. This action was necessary to maintain the stability of our financial system. In return, AIG must comply with stringent limitations on executive compensation for its top executives, golden parachutes, its bonus pool, corporate expenses, and lobbying. We recognize that the financial system remains fragile and we continue to stand ready to prevent systemic failures. We worked with the Congress to ensure the TARP included sufficient flexibility to do just this.

Tags:: bailout,; AIG, Inc.,; Henry Paulson,; Wall Street

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The outrage over AIG using less than 0.1% of the $173 billion stolen (so far) to pay employee “bonuses” [sic hush money] is silly. The Department of Justice ("DoJ") should prosecute and send the guilty parties to jail. Here is a prescription for recovering the $173 billion that AIG has stolen from the federal government thus far.
(1) The DoJ should file suit in a U.S. District Court for civil conspiracy, fraud and breach of fiduciary duty against AIG and AIG’s directors. The DoJ can prosecute these defendants under the False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. § 3729–3733), the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968), and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd-1).
(2) The DoJ should add as co-defendants any counterparties to AIG’s fraudulent derivative contracts (credit default swaps, etc.) who were unjustly enriched by being paid-off using any portion of the $173 billion that AIG extorted and defraud from the federal government.
(3) DoJ should file a motion in the case seeking the imposition of a constructive trust, in equity, over the federal government’s money, and/or any assets into which the counterparties converted the federal government’s money.
(4) The DoJ should allow a jury of intellectually honest citizens determine if AIG and AIG’s directors are liable for claims against them; and if they are, the amount of money that each party unjustly enriched by AIG’s extortion and fraud scam should return to the federal government.
(5) The DoJ should take on all appeals through to the Supreme Court so that the consequences of violating the laws that AIG has violated will set precedent for prosecuting others who choose to follow AIG's path.
See http://texasbarwatch.blogspot.com/ for information on how the U.S. Congress has facilitated AIG's theft and failed to prosecute the company or its directors for these crimes. Also, http://TexasBarWatch.US/ and http://Iran-Conoco-Affair.US/.
See http://www.delawarelitigation.com/2009/02/articles/chancery-court-updates/chancery-court-allows-claims-to-proceed-against-greenberg-other-aig-directors/ for information on how AIG shareholders (read: lawyers fronting for AIG shareholders) are attempting to unjustly enrich themselves on U.S. taxpayer money being used to defend AIG's corrupt directors.

Pro Se of TX 9:55AM March 29, 2009

Not since 1798 in the XYZ Affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYZ_Affair) has there been an extortion threat of this magnitude against the national financial security of the the United States. The objective of the extortion is to gain more than $100,000,000,000 in tribute from the U.S. Treasury by one multinational corporation, otherwise a greater depression than The Great Depression will be triggered.
Unlike the XYZ Affair, the extortionist is not France nor any other country, it is American International Group, Inc. ("AIG") (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_International_Group), a company that has "globalized" public corruption into a "new world order" of complicit government officials that have been bribed into treasonously breaching their fiduciary duties to their countries' citizens' national financial security interests. The architect of and the prime-mover in this web of corruption has been Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_R._Greenberg), who had corked his bat for decades to create a false image that his home-runs were due to some superior business acumen.
While it is good that the United States Department of Justice ("DoJ") is investigating and prosecuting the relatively small-fish like Bernard Lawrence Madoff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff) and Robert Allen Stanford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Stanford), a reformed DoJ will not turn a blind-eye to the law enforcement agencies' mandate to go after big-fish like AIG and Greenberg. The DoJ can begin with the obvious violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), that underlie the well-developed civil litigation taking place in Fort Worth, Texas that has exposed evidence that AIG has defrauded the victims' families of a corporate jet crash that occurred more than seventeen years ago of the justified benefits of a $100,000,000 aviation liability insurance policy that AIG sold to the crash victims' employers, DuPont and Conoco (n.k.a. ConocoPhillips). (See http://Iran-Conoco-Affair.US and http://TexasBarWatch.US)
However, the DoJ should be forewarned that AIG and Greenberg will continue to use the benefits of years of unjust enrichment to evade equal justice under the law through the bribery of corrupt public officials who are in a position to derail the investigation and prosecution. In Texas, a well established method is to channel the bribe money through a compliant law firm that launders the money as incoming "legal fees" and then pass it out as a political contribution to the targeted public official. If the size of the bribe for the quid pro quo is too large, public officials who are also lawyers can be rewarded later in "retirement" with lucrative employment at the same law firms in jobs subsidized by the briber. This mechanism for bribery is widely used in Texas and has gained AIG "respect" for its ruthlessness among most members of the lawyers'

Pro Se of TX 9:52PM March 15, 2009

This whole bailout thing is such a mess. How can we justify allowing $4,000,000 bonuses and all expense paid vacations to AIG executives and not do something to prevent a total collapse in Detroit? More so where is the accountability for banks like B of A who have used their tarp funds to purchase other banks or pay divideds when millions of home owners are lossing their properties? Where is the governments accountability for our tax dollars? In fact what is being done to assist those who were employed in the real estate sector, were in commissioned sales, ( real estate sales or mortgage banking ) are now left without a way to provide for thei families!! JW

John Wheeler of 9:00AM December 14, 2008

Treasury’s Neel Kashkari on the AIG Bailout

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