An ordinary employee would usually pay a huge price for a simple and honest mistake. What I do not understand is the fact that some of the executives are still on the board. We did not see any heads roll yet. People should be prosecuted and go to jail!. In addition to bad decisions taken there is obvious misrepresentation of material facts. The cost was very high and affected millions of people and some simplylost all their life savings, pension and or kids educational plans. It is a disaster and it is only fair that the person(s) in charge pay the price for their wrong doing. If course it will not bring the investors money back but it will at least send a strong message that you can play with people lives without paying a price.
Greenberg kept a short leash on this unit. He met with Cassano weekly to control exposure. $5 billion to bottom line profit over 18 years while Greenberg was at the helm. That is not that much for a company of this size. He knew the risks and kept it under control. It was not until he was run out by “Prostiitute Boy” that this unit was able to grow out of control with no oversight. If you read this article it is obvious that based on the time frames and figures that Greenberg is not to blame. It is true as long as they had investments in these instuments it would have created losses but in my opinion they would not have even close to having this affect on AIG
Greenberg did keep a tight control on FP and knew its every move. If left at the helm AIG would probably not be in nearly the mess that it is in. But make no mistake about it, we had CDS under Greenberg and would would definitely be hurting now even if he were in control.
What Greenberg is most guilty of though is creating an unrealistic environment where the demanded on managers and the promise to the street was to produce 15% top and bottom line growth year in and year out regardless of the market environment. Anyone that understands asset based products such as annuities knows that it is impossible to grow top and bottom line in tandem with one another. The relationship between top and bottom line growth within the asset backed business is not one to one. This might be true for general insurance but not annuities and not other type of asset backed businesses that Greenberg chose to enter.
Thus enters FP which for years was able to effecitvely deliver trading type profits (aka Goldman Sachs) which would suplement the inability of some business units to deliver 15% top and bottom line growth. Did Hank and Company explain to the world that his traditional insurance businesses and annuity business weren’t the cause of the great performance. Heck no, the data was there in the disclosures if you chose to investigate but it definitely wasn’t explicitly mentioned verbally that FP was the cause of the great returns.
Then AIG comes 2005 and Hank leaves and enters Sullivan. Sullivan didn’t know nor care what FP did. They simply allowed him to keep meeting the 15 top and bottom line AIG standard and so he simply let them be. And now we have what we have.
Greenberg is guilty of creating the culture that caused the mess. Sullivan is guilty of stupidity and doing nothing to oversee FP. The two combined is what equals today’s AIG mess.
Greenberg; a lawyer himself should’ve taken a nolo contendre or paid a hefty fine & agreed to a cease & desist while he figured out a way to “get” prostitute boy’ Spitzer.
Instead, he got into a pissing match with that schmuck-yutz, and it cost him dearly.
Hey: the crud was Governor, that’s powerful in NYS
But Hank got back.
He had Spitzer tailed (if any o’ you-all haven’t figured this out yet) and caught him with his schwanz in the zoineh !
He did something Silda never even fathomed !
Hank got post-retribution,- but he couldn’t get even and,..it was too late.
The ball had started rolling, by late August 2008
Two last things, guys :
1) Hank “got” Spitzer not because Spitzer aided in his ouster, but because Spitzer went after Jeff.
No matter what, you don’t “f” with Jeff, Evan or Michael.
2) Obama was elected by the MELT-DOWN..-not because he’s a financial genius…..-and certainly not because Geitner knows how to pay his own taxes.
Have a great day & pray Obama doesn’t come after our bank deposits next.
The article clearly notes that Hank lost
sight of the basics he had preached in the
last 4 years. I remember that he asked me
in 1979 when I was Chief Accountant in AIG’s London office, “Why do the results
worsen when the accounting improves?” My
colleague then was Martin Sullivan. He
wasted no time in issuing a directive to
cease the CDSs that Hank had created!
So these guys get their millions/billions and WE get the shaft aka BAILOUT? This is what ****** people off badly…want to see some heads roll, and somebody goes to jail!
Well, dah!!!! Greenberg developed a culture that lived on the edge. It was only a matter of time before AIG fell on the knife. Anyone with some degree of common sense and underwriting knowledge that worked with AIG should have appreciated that their business practices were out of the norm and perhaps reckless. Some of us NEVER felt that this entity was the shining beacon of the insurance industry as portrayed by Wall Street. Historically, too many deals were done without fully understanding the risk and assigning a proper price for the risk — just to show growth for Wall Street. Thanks Hank and please go away!!!!
Hank, you played Russian roulette too many times with the volatile credit market and lost. Now AIG is in ruins and paying the price because of your recklessness. Why don’t you take a high dive into an empty pool?
I had AIG running just fine. Spitzer F’d me and now look what happens to my company! It wouldn’t have happened under my watch.
I’m just upset that I lost 2 billion as a result of AIG’s stock price dropping. Don’t cry for me cause I’ve got my lawsuit filed.
I’m going to continue to go on MSNBC and talk to my people on Squak box to let everyone know that it wasn’t your boy Hank that made this mess. This is just what happens when you pull Hank out the drivers seat…
I am not encumbered with experience so let me make an observation and those “in the know” can flame away.
Greenburg ran the company for 38 years. Certainly if he was assuming as much risk as is being portrayed it would have come up long before now. Instead the entity’s financials were the envy of most.
Secondly, didn’t Grenburg leave 4 years and 2 CEO’s ago? How can AIG now portray this solely as something that occurred under his watch?
As an outsider it certainly looks like this was a beta-chase that needed tight oversight. When Hank was there he knew it, and it got it. Once he was gone direct involvement was exchanged for ERM models (that missed the risk) and the unit was allowed to grow out of control simply so a new CEO could prove that he could fill the old one’s shoes.
As I said, this is just one person’s arms length observation.
1) Who are the named insureds you insured on the CDS?
2) What underwriting did you perform?
3) How was premium derived?
4) Where is a copy of the policy contract? Was it an ISO form or a manuscript?
5) How much have you paid out in claims.
6) Who are you paying claims to?
7) What triggers a claim?
8) If claims are being paid, then why are banks asking for money if you were insuring their losses?
9) Are you only paying some claims? and how are you determining which claims will be paid?
this is just a start…I’m sure others here, have more questions. Why aren’t the politicians asking these questions?
I’ll bet you have been explaining a lot since you posted the comment .
Everyone knows what you are now. A slightly more intelligent vwersion of Bernie Madoff……..
An ordinary employee would usually pay a huge price for a simple and honest mistake. What I do not understand is the fact that some of the executives are still on the board. We did not see any heads roll yet. People should be prosecuted and go to jail!. In addition to bad decisions taken there is obvious misrepresentation of material facts. The cost was very high and affected millions of people and some simplylost all their life savings, pension and or kids educational plans. It is a disaster and it is only fair that the person(s) in charge pay the price for their wrong doing. If course it will not bring the investors money back but it will at least send a strong message that you can play with people lives without paying a price.
Greenberg kept a short leash on this unit. He met with Cassano weekly to control exposure. $5 billion to bottom line profit over 18 years while Greenberg was at the helm. That is not that much for a company of this size. He knew the risks and kept it under control. It was not until he was run out by “Prostiitute Boy” that this unit was able to grow out of control with no oversight. If you read this article it is obvious that based on the time frames and figures that Greenberg is not to blame. It is true as long as they had investments in these instuments it would have created losses but in my opinion they would not have even close to having this affect on AIG
How did spitzer run him out if he was innocent? He wouldnt even participate in his own companies internal probe.
Spitzer wasn’t god…..he didnt have that much power.
Greenberg did keep a tight control on FP and knew its every move. If left at the helm AIG would probably not be in nearly the mess that it is in. But make no mistake about it, we had CDS under Greenberg and would would definitely be hurting now even if he were in control.
What Greenberg is most guilty of though is creating an unrealistic environment where the demanded on managers and the promise to the street was to produce 15% top and bottom line growth year in and year out regardless of the market environment. Anyone that understands asset based products such as annuities knows that it is impossible to grow top and bottom line in tandem with one another. The relationship between top and bottom line growth within the asset backed business is not one to one. This might be true for general insurance but not annuities and not other type of asset backed businesses that Greenberg chose to enter.
Thus enters FP which for years was able to effecitvely deliver trading type profits (aka Goldman Sachs) which would suplement the inability of some business units to deliver 15% top and bottom line growth. Did Hank and Company explain to the world that his traditional insurance businesses and annuity business weren’t the cause of the great performance. Heck no, the data was there in the disclosures if you chose to investigate but it definitely wasn’t explicitly mentioned verbally that FP was the cause of the great returns.
Then AIG comes 2005 and Hank leaves and enters Sullivan. Sullivan didn’t know nor care what FP did. They simply allowed him to keep meeting the 15 top and bottom line AIG standard and so he simply let them be. And now we have what we have.
Greenberg is guilty of creating the culture that caused the mess. Sullivan is guilty of stupidity and doing nothing to oversee FP. The two combined is what equals today’s AIG mess.
Greenberg; a lawyer himself should’ve taken a nolo contendre or paid a hefty fine & agreed to a cease & desist while he figured out a way to “get” prostitute boy’ Spitzer.
Instead, he got into a pissing match with that schmuck-yutz, and it cost him dearly.
Hey: the crud was Governor, that’s powerful in NYS
But Hank got back.
He had Spitzer tailed (if any o’ you-all haven’t figured this out yet) and caught him with his schwanz in the zoineh !
He did something Silda never even fathomed !
Hank got post-retribution,- but he couldn’t get even and,..it was too late.
The ball had started rolling, by late August 2008
Two last things, guys :
1) Hank “got” Spitzer not because Spitzer aided in his ouster, but because Spitzer went after Jeff.
No matter what, you don’t “f” with Jeff, Evan or Michael.
2) Obama was elected by the MELT-DOWN..-not because he’s a financial genius…..-and certainly not because Geitner knows how to pay his own taxes.
Have a great day & pray Obama doesn’t come after our bank deposits next.
What do you mean come after our bank deposits next? I thought about that and I actually transferred my 401k to my savings to withdraw completely.
The article clearly notes that Hank lost
sight of the basics he had preached in the
last 4 years. I remember that he asked me
in 1979 when I was Chief Accountant in AIG’s London office, “Why do the results
worsen when the accounting improves?” My
colleague then was Martin Sullivan. He
wasted no time in issuing a directive to
cease the CDSs that Hank had created!
So these guys get their millions/billions and WE get the shaft aka BAILOUT? This is what ****** people off badly…want to see some heads roll, and somebody goes to jail!
Well, dah!!!! Greenberg developed a culture that lived on the edge. It was only a matter of time before AIG fell on the knife. Anyone with some degree of common sense and underwriting knowledge that worked with AIG should have appreciated that their business practices were out of the norm and perhaps reckless. Some of us NEVER felt that this entity was the shining beacon of the insurance industry as portrayed by Wall Street. Historically, too many deals were done without fully understanding the risk and assigning a proper price for the risk — just to show growth for Wall Street. Thanks Hank and please go away!!!!
Dear Icabod,
I don’t have to die now and I don’t have to explain anything to you.
HG
Hank, you played Russian roulette too many times with the volatile credit market and lost. Now AIG is in ruins and paying the price because of your recklessness. Why don’t you take a high dive into an empty pool?
I had AIG running just fine. Spitzer F’d me and now look what happens to my company! It wouldn’t have happened under my watch.
I’m just upset that I lost 2 billion as a result of AIG’s stock price dropping. Don’t cry for me cause I’ve got my lawsuit filed.
I’m going to continue to go on MSNBC and talk to my people on Squak box to let everyone know that it wasn’t your boy Hank that made this mess. This is just what happens when you pull Hank out the drivers seat…
You people who think otherwise are idiots.
I am not encumbered with experience so let me make an observation and those “in the know” can flame away.
Greenburg ran the company for 38 years. Certainly if he was assuming as much risk as is being portrayed it would have come up long before now. Instead the entity’s financials were the envy of most.
Secondly, didn’t Grenburg leave 4 years and 2 CEO’s ago? How can AIG now portray this solely as something that occurred under his watch?
As an outsider it certainly looks like this was a beta-chase that needed tight oversight. When Hank was there he knew it, and it got it. Once he was gone direct involvement was exchanged for ERM models (that missed the risk) and the unit was allowed to grow out of control simply so a new CEO could prove that he could fill the old one’s shoes.
As I said, this is just one person’s arms length observation.
You got AIG in this financial mess and we know it. Lying about it won’t help.
1) Who are the named insureds you insured on the CDS?
2) What underwriting did you perform?
3) How was premium derived?
4) Where is a copy of the policy contract? Was it an ISO form or a manuscript?
5) How much have you paid out in claims.
6) Who are you paying claims to?
7) What triggers a claim?
8) If claims are being paid, then why are banks asking for money if you were insuring their losses?
9) Are you only paying some claims? and how are you determining which claims will be paid?
this is just a start…I’m sure others here, have more questions. Why aren’t the politicians asking these questions?
Just die already. We’re tired of hearing about you. You screwed it up, now either live with it or pass on. No one needs you.
Icabod
I’ll bet you have been explaining a lot since you posted the comment .
Everyone knows what you are now. A slightly more intelligent vwersion of Bernie Madoff……..