The Blame Game For The Financial Mess

The blame game has started.

The issues pointed out are rather valid in my opinion and if nothing is done, history will repeat itself once more!

Posted on CNN Money.

• Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government, said the executives received large bonuses that they didn't deserve. He also company officials wined and dined at posh resorts even after the government issued the company a taxpayer-funded billion credit line on Sept. 16.
  
  In prepared testimony for a committee hearing, ex-CEOs Robert Willumstad and Martin Sullivan said the rules forced AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) to take billions in writedowns and led to a downward spiral that led to the government action.
  
  Waxman put the blame for AIG's troubles squarely on its past and pesent leaders, comparing them to the former Lehman chief executive Richard Fuld, who testified on Monday about the investment bank's bankruptcy.
  
  "In each case, the companies and their executives grew rich by taking on excessive risk," said Waxman. "In each case, the companies collapsed when these risks turned bad. And in each case, their executives are walking away with millions of dollars while taxpayers are stuck with billions of dollars in costs."
  
  Waxman added, "The AIG CEOs are like the Lehman CEO in one other key respect - in each case, they refuse to accept any blame for what happened to their companies."
  
  In particular, Waxman singled out AIG's financial products division, headed by Joseph Cassano.
  
  "This (bailout) was a direct result of the mistakes made by Mr. Cassano," Waxman said. "Yet even today, he remains on the company payroll, receiving $1 million a month."
  
  Waxman also attacked company leadership for throwing a one-week retreat at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. just days after the bailout, at a cost of $440,000.
  
  "Average Americans are suffering economically. They are losing their jobs, their homes, and their health insurance," said Waxman. "Yet less than one week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation."
  
  Willumstad, who was CEO from June through the September action by the Federal Reserve, said "mark to market" accounting rules - which require companies to value securities at current prices in distressed situations - forced financial institutions to book billions of dollars in losses for securities that were not in default.
  
  He said those losses led to a spiral that included debt rating downgrades.
  
  Sullivan, who was CEO from March 2005 until June, said the accounting rules were key among several factors leading to AIG's problems, saying they had "unintended consequences for financial institutions when markets seize up."
  
  On Oct. 3, AIG said it had already gone $61 billion into debt to the government, and was selling off parts of the company to pay for it.
  
  Tuesday's hearing was to be the second by the House Oversight panel to examine what went wrong with the economy.
  
  The first, on Monday, grilled Fuld, over why his company failed. The committee blamed Fuld and Lehman for being partly responsible for the economic failure that led to the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.
  
  But Fuld blamed a "crisis of confidence" that had swept through the financial markets.
  
  Waxman also hammered Fuld for reaping about $480 million since 2000 at Lehman, while Fuld disputed that tally.
  

Isn't it simply disgusting to read all these??? Sigh!!!

Source and rest of story: here