Eideard

Daylife/Reuters pictures used by permission

The American International Group has reached an agreement in principle to repay the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the company’s 2008 rescue, and to gradually return the ownership of its stock to the public markets.

Robert Benmosche, chief executive of A.I.G., said the plan would allow the company to “remain on track to emerge with one of the largest, most diversified property and casualty companies in the world.”

The company and its rescuers in the federal government have been working intently in recent weeks to complete such a plan before the expiration of the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program on Oct. 3, and before the Fed’s bailout loan came due. The original terms called for A.I.G. to pay back the Fed within two years.

Under the plan, the Treasury Department will, for a time, own 92.1 percent of A.I.G. before it begins to sell its shares…

The company said it would use its own resources to pay back the $20 billion in loans, including the proceeds it expects to receive from the sale of a big overseas life insurance unit to MetLife. That sale, announced in March, should yield $6.8 billion in cash and $8.7 billion in MetLife stock, and close by the end of the year.

Still more money to repay the Fed is expected to come from an initial public offering of a second big foreign life insurance business on the Hong Kong exchange. The offering was delayed for several months while A.I.G. tried unsuccessfully to sell the unit to a British company, but A.I.G. now says the Hong Kong offering is back on. It did not provide a time frame.

In addition, the Treasury has agreed to help the Fed sever its ties with A.I.G., by providing the means for the company to redeem most of the Fed’s $26 billion in preferred interests. That money will come from the unused portion of an emergency assistance package that the Treasury made available to A.I.G. as its troubles reached a peak in early 2009…

Taking all of those steps will end the Fed’s role as a lender to A.I.G. and an investor in the company, a role that has never fit in well with the Fed’s duties as a central bank. The Treasury will come out of the transaction with a larger preferred stake in A.I.G., but expects the company to keep taking steps to pay it down, according to the new agreement in principle.

The range of fools, from hypocrites and sophists in the Republican Party to the just-plain-ignorant tea baggers who persist in whining about TARP confound reason. Whether your concern is history or economics, the truth remains self-evident. Not only did the TARP program keep a significant chunk of our economy from collapsing in the wake of the meltdown resulting from a decade or more of Free Market corruption, our Treasury and taxpayers continue to realize a profit from the payback.

It ain’t all over. But, the process is advanced enough that even the political losers and their obedient grunts should consider climbing on board and joining the move towards the future – instead of trying to turn back both time and progress.

Senator Ron Wyden says that the furor surrounding AIG’s bonus payments could have been avoided had the Obama White House and members of Congress simply backed legislation that he and Sen. Olympia Snowe introduced more than a month ago.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, the Oregon Democrat noted that during the crafting of the stimulus package, he and his Republican colleague from Maine introduced a provision that would have forced bailout recipients to cap their bonuses at $100,000. Any amount paid above that would have been taxed at 35 percent. The language made it through the Senate, but during conference committee with the House, it was inexplicably removed.

“The reality is, had that legislation been passed it would have been a very strong disincentive to anybody paying out bonuses in the future,” said Wyden. “Earlier, the President had denounced those bonuses that came at the end of the year. And when Senator Snowe and I said it is not enough for those in elected office to say it was wrong, that they have got to have a plan to have them pay it back, we were able to get legislation through the United States Senate. Not a single United States Senator was willing in broad daylight to stand up and oppose our bipartisan amendment… but it died in conference.”

Looking back, Wyden still laments the missed opportunity, saying that it remains unclear who got the language stripped — “it didn’t die by osmosis…”

“I will say that I talked to most of the key members of the Obama team and I was not able to convince them of the value of the amendment that I authored with Senator Snowe,” he recalled. “I think it is unfortunate. I think it was an opportunity to send a careful, well-targeted message, which would have communicated how strongly the administration felt about blocking these excessive bonuses. I wasn’t able to convince them.”

So, anyone see proof in print, yet – who removed the amendment?

Daylife/Reuters Pictures

U.S. Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, says the government needs to determine if millions in employee bonuses at American International Group can be recovered.

“We need to find out whether these bonuses are legally recoverable,” Frank, a Democrat, told the “Fox News Sunday” program, adding that the timing of the company’s commitment to make the awards to its employees was important.

Embattled insurer AIG, which has received three government bailouts totaling $180 billion, had promised to pay about $1 billion in retention bonuses over a period of several years, half of which has already been paid…

About half of the $1 billion was due to be paid to staff of AIG’s main insurance businesses and the rest to employees of the largely unregulated AIG Financial Products.

Give ‘em a choice, Barney! They can return the bonuses – or work it off building roads, repairing bridges. You know. Doing something that puts blisters somewhere other than their lazy butts.

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In a stunning turn, the Federal Reserve Board is lending as much as $85 billion to rescue crumbling insurer American International Group, officials have announced.

The Fed authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) up to $85 billion. In return, the federal government will receive a 79.9% stake in the company…

The bailout marks the most dramatic turn yet in an expanding crisis that started more than a year ago in the mortgage meltdown. The resulting credit crunch is now toppling not only mainstay Wall Street players, but others in the wider financial industry .

The line of credit to AIG, which is available for two years, is designed to help the company meet its obligations, the Fed said. Interest will accrue at a steep rate of 3-month Libor plus 8.5%, which totals 11.31% at today’s rates. AIG will sell certain of its businesses with “the least possible disruption to the overall economy.”

Taxpayers will be protected, the Fed said, because the loan is backed by the assets of AIG and its subsidiaries. The loan is expected to be repaid from the proceeds of the asset sales.

Doesn’t it feel great to be so “protected”?