A one-year chart of AIG stockPossession seems to be nine-tenths of the law, even when you have $170 billion in government bailout money. American Internation Group got just that much and still plans to distribute some $165 million in bonuses to execs in the same division that brought the company to near financial ruin.
Venerable AIG, a component of the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average and a holding in many mutual funds, closed at fifty-cents a share on Friday – that’s point five zero dollars, a few cents more than the cost of a postage stamp. A year ago it traded a hundred times higher at $50.
This plan didn’t work for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, but AIG chairman Edward M. Liddy has the government’s (i.e. our!) money and told Geithner they’ll be handing it out as planned.
You think these execs will be buying AIG stock with it?
