House Proceeding 03-18-09 on Mar 18th, 2009 :: 0:51:55 to 0:55:25
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0:49:15 to 0:55:25( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John Yarmuth

0:51:40 to 0:52:01( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: in light of what we have learned recently, he had a contract which entitled to bonuses of another $34 million. we don't know who the recipients of these bonuses that were paid last weekr but it would be fascinating to know if mr. cassano was one of those people,

0:52:02 to 0:52:23( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: because he had one of those contracts, someone who was paid $280 million over eight years was due $34 million more wn he had essentially brought down one of the 10 largest corporations in the united states. and in the process, cost

0:52:24 to 0:52:45( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: american taxpayers as much as $180 billion. so it's not just a question of outrage that now, since the american taxpayers are paying attention and the congress is paying attention situation and all of us are rightly outraged, but we have to

0:52:46 to 0:53:06( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: look back and see the greed, the malfeasance and the criminality that occurred in this corporate operation. strangely enough, when we spoke to the c.e.o.'s in the oversight committee last year, they really didn't understand anything that was going on and in their

0:53:07 to 0:53:27( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: de that this operation was already been going and at some point making a.i.g. a fair amount of money. but they didn't know what credit default swaps were or the collateralized bets, but they did know that all of a sudden, this one operation that was kind

0:53:28 to 0:53:49( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: of hidden from their view and developed this mystery about it because nobody except mr. there, he knew he cost them the company and cost the american people an awful lot of money. the great finishing touch on this story is that even after

0:53:50 to 0:54:11( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: mr. cassano had been fired, he was still on a.i.g.'s payroll as a consultant fo$1 million a month, $1 million a month and the reason was nobody else knew what was going in that division. they had to have the benefit of his knowledge, even though his knowledge had cost them their company.

0:54:12 to 0:54:32( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: so this is a story that didn't happen yesterday. it didn't happen on friday when the bonus checks were issued. this is a story that is symbolic of what has gone on in this country over the last decade when greed and a lack of supervision and a lack of regulation has resulted in a worldwide financial cris.

0:54:33 to 0:54:53( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: so we can rightly be mad and we will take action tomorrow to rectify this situation with bonuses, but this, again, is symptomatic of a much deeper problem that this congress, both in the financial services committee, in the house finance committee and the senate and through our government is going

0:54:54 to 0:55:15( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: to be dealing with for a long period of time. so i'm glad that we have the opportunity to talk about this cris and accountability and this crisis in regulation, this crisis in supervision in our country, because the american people deserve not just to have

0:55:16 to 0:55:26( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: those bonuses returned to the taxpayers' accounts, but they also to have an economy that is free of the insecurity of these type of situations.