Edward Liddy (pictured) uses the pages of Wednesday's Washington Post
to
join
the public's outrage over the retention bonuses paid to employees of American
International Group Inc.'s (NYSE:AIG) Global Economy Destruction unit.
The insurer's CEO
insists that he is as angry as everyone else about the payments. "Make no
mistake, had I been chief executive at the time, I would never have approved the
retention contracts that were put in place more than a year ago," he writes. "It
was distasteful to have to make these payments. But we concluded that the risks
to the company, and therefore the financial system and the economy, were
unacceptably high."
OK, so Liddy wouldn't have approved the bonuses -- that's
not good enough. As the CEO when the payments were made, he could have put a
stop to them. Such a move would have invited legal action by the affected
employees, but it sounds like most people would have preferred to pay lawyers a
zillion dollars an hour if it meant preventing -- or even just delaying -- the
transfer of funds to AIG's global economy destroyers.
And just what was the
risk that Liddy thought was unacceptable? A "potentially very large" downside
for U.S. taxpayers. You know what, Mr. Liddy? We'll take our chances.
- Jeffrey
Kanige
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