Tim Duy pointed out this priceless remark from AIG’s new CEO, Robert Benmosch:

Benmosche told employees that he “had the luxury to say to the government, I’m not going to rush to do this. I’m appalled at how much pressure has been put on all of you to just sell it no matter what, because the Fed wants out, or the Treasury wants out. If they want out in a hurry, they shouldn’t have come in in the first place.”

For anyone who followed the rescue, this is a staggering bit of hubris and revisionist history. First, the idea that the government “came in” implies that this was some sort of normal investment process, as opposed to AIG begging the Federal government for a rescue, even though states, not the national government, are the main regulators of insurance business (the AIG Financial Products business was overseen, if you can call it that, by the Office of Thrift Supervision. AIG structured its operation so as to get them as supervisor precisely because they were guaranteed to do next to nothing).

Next, the original deal called for AIG to pay back the money in two years. That inconvenient fact has been airbrushed out of the story Benmosche tells us. AIG made great assurances that the operating units were worth a lot of money and paying back the loans would be no problem. They accepted a high rate of interest give the riskiness of the loans and the desire of the Federal government to keep the heat on AIG. This original deal in theory fit Bagehot’s rule: lend generously, at a penalty rate, against good collateral.

But AIG fooled itself, or maybe just everyone else. Those supposed crown jewels were worth a lot less than AIG thought.Once they had established they would not be permitted to fail, they started retrading the deal. When AIG realized it couldn’t sell some operating units, pronto, suddenly it started complaining the interest rate (I think Libor plus 8 1/2%, forgive me for working from memory) was too high. Oh, and they happened to need more money too, a wee oversight in their initial demand. So the deal was reworked to give them better terms, a bigger commitment, and NOTHING ADDITIONAL was obtained. This was a free concession, a very bad move in deal land.

The government owns 79.9% of AIG. Any private sector owner who had an overwhelming majority interest and got that kind of attitude from a CEO would fire him immediately. But no, we live in a world where arrogant members of the financial services industry engage in looting, dictate terms to the government, and try to rewrite history to make baldfaced lies seem plausible. Why shoudn’t the government pressure AIG? The idea that owners don’t pressure companies (the subtext of this remark) is an absurd misrepresentation. Go talk to the management of any underperforming company owned by a PE or venture capital firm. For the most part, they do not play nice, and would never tolerate Benmoshe’s posturing, and he knows that. He is simply playing the media and the public for fools.