March 2009

AIG paid bonuses of $1 mn or more to 73 employees at its financial-products division, including 11 who no longer work for the company, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said. The top 10 bonus recipients received a combined $42 mn, he said. AIG's financial products unit lost $40.5 bn last year. "AIG made more than 73 millionaires in the unit which lost so much money that it brought the ... read more

"We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts. Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system."--Lawrence Summers, chief economic advisor to President Barack Obama "Perhaps you [the government] can explain to all of us why a UAW worker earning $29 an hour must give back wages ... read more

Dear Readers, Today marks a departure from the regular financial columns I write. My dear friend Karen Bernstein, a Grammy and Emmy award winning documentary film maker, attended the Madoff court hearing yesterday morning and shared some journal notes that are worth reading. Bernstein went with two interns she is working with on a documentary production tentatively entitled "Forgiveness" ... read more

It's a mystery bordering on science fiction why the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to restore the uptick rule, a rule that put the brakes on both short sellers and plunging stock prices. In a regularly scheduled Congressional appearance to discuss the commission’s budget, SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said the agency is considering restoring the circuit breaker rule as soon as next ... read more

Bernie Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme dwarfs the scams committed by prior fraudsters convicted in the unprecedented wave of corporate accounting scandals that deluged the stock market at the outset of this decade, when the Internet and telecom bubble burst. Madoff is expected to serve the rest of his life in jail, but how does that expected sentence stack up against the sentences meted out to ... read more