Yesterday at the AIG office in Wilton, Connecticut:
“The most-talked-about employees in America … watched quietly as members of Congress referred to them as greedy and incompetent. They heard more than one demand that their names be released to the seething American public. They heard the chairman of American International Group, Edward M. Liddy, tell lawmakers that people, in e-mails sent to AIG-FP, suggested that the firm’s leaders “should be executed with piano wire around their necks.” The evening before, the firm’s chief operating officer, Gerry Pasciucco — whom Liddy recruited in November from Morgan Stanley to shut down Financial Products before it could do more harm to the economy — urged them to keep their heads down, to act professionally and to continue working to extricate Financial Products from its more than $1.6 trillion in outstanding derivative contracts. In reply, they told him that they worried mostly about getting shot, despite the guards now patrolling the parking lot, the front door and some of their homes.” [WP]
Today on the House floor: “Have the recipients of these checks no shame at all?” Representative Earl Pomeroy shouted. Summing up his personal view of the so-far-anonymous AIG executives, he said: “You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money back.” [DealBook/NYT]
Oh, and their names? Those should be released shortly. This is all starting to feel very unpleasant.
