AIG Bonuses Were $454 Million
by Dollars and Sense
Turns out the total bonuses paid to AIG were $454 million last year, or 4 times higher than previously reported. How do we know this? Because Congressman Elija Cummings asked them a direct question. See, nobody asked them this precise question before, so they didn't think anyone really wanted to know.
From
Politico:
The 2008 AIG bonus pool just keeps getting larger and larger.
In a response to detailed questions from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the company has offered a third assessment of exactly how much it paid out in bonuses last year.
And the new number, offered in a document submitted to Cummings on May 1, is the highest figure the company has disclosed to date.
AIG now says it paid out more than $454 million in bonuses to its employees for work performed in 2008.
That is nearly four times more than the company revealed in late March when asked by POLITICO to detail its total bonus payments. At that time, AIG spokesman Nick Ashooh said the firm paid about $120 million in 2008 bonuses to a pool of more than 6,000 employees.
The figure Ashooh offered was, in turn, substantially higher than company CEO Edward Liddy claimed days earlier in testimony before a House Financial Services Subcommittee. Asked how much AIG had paid in 2008 bonuses, Liddy responded: "I think it might have been in the range of $9 million."
"I was shocked to see that the number has nearly quadrupled this time," said Cummings. "I simply cannot fathom why this company continues to erode the trust of the public and the U.S. Congress, rather than being forthcoming about these issues from the start."
In other news,
AIG lost another $5 billion in the first three months of the year.
I suppose that's better than losing $10 billion. Another round of bonuses for everyone!
--d.f.
Labels: AIG, Daniel Fireside, Elija Cummings, Wall Stree bonuses
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5/07/2009 02:44:00 PM 
