Worst and Best Trades From 2008
Houghton and Atkeson, January 1, 2009
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6. Bonuses, Parties and Private Jets for Bailout Money
AIG's board of directors agreed to pay Joseph Cassano a $34 million bonus and a $1,000,000-per-month consulting fee. Cassano was the guy who led the group that wrote the credit-default swap contracts that took the company down. AIG made similar bonus payments to its departing CEO, Martin Sullivan.
As if that wasn't enough, the company spent $442,000 on a weeklong party for its top sales staff.
AIG was not an isolated case of the bailout for bonus trade. To put an exclamation point on the moral bankruptcy exhibited, the chief executives of our auto industry arrived in Washington, D.C., in private jets to ask for $25 billion in bailout money while offering no plan for what they would do with it once they got it.
Next: Investing with Bernard Madoff
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