AIG might soon be better known as American Investment Gougers rather than American International Group. First, AIG gave us the Marsh McLennan scandal that cost its shareholders $850 million though AIG doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing. ($850 million is a hell of a price for doing nothing wrong.) Now it seems C.V. Starr, a private holding company owned by top AIG executives and directors, is pocketing big profits on lucrative insurance business, profits that could be earned by AIG investors. How much? A cool hundred to two hundred million since 1999. AIG’s comment…“The company does not comment on matters in litigation.” Don’t you just feel like slapping someone silly every time you hear that?
Viacom took an $18 billion—that’s B as in BILLION—non-cash write down for its radio and outdoor advertising businesses purchased in 2000. With 18 billion carat gold chutzpah, Viacom’s octogenarian chief executive, Sumner Redstone, said Viacom couldn’t be accused of overpaying. Oh, and the ‘non-cash charge’ crap: someone’s paying, like shareholders whose stock took a dump and tax payers as in you and me baby.
Rather than wasting time trying to hijack Uncle Sam for big bucks, American-based airlines should boogie to Bombay where Jet Airways India’s $400 million (+) IPO sold out in ten minutes and ended up being oversubscribed 18.7 times.
Color-coded Tom Ridge of Homeland Security fame has been named a director of Home Depot. Who knew duct tape and plastic sheeting sales had gone so well.
Was Scott A. Livengood, ousted ceo of Krispy Kreme, liven too good? The United States Attorney’s office and the SEC seem to think so and are poking around for more than a dozen to go.
I wonder if Dracula or one of his pals might have eased the tension between Vladimir and George when they met yesterday at Bratislava Castle in Slovakia. It would seem G may have been Put in his place by V.
So Karen R. Hitchcock, president of SUNY at Albany, about to be tarred with the brush of questionable ethics, scoots north to become principal of Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. Canada may need to tighten its border crossings.
Oy robot! MIT has designed a knee-high guy with clothespin like arms, mouse trap feet, a cylinder shaped head the size of a D cell battery, a chrome ring for shoulders and chest from which dangle a handful of crayon-like appendages (one of which must surely be the spare rib for the Eve version) and two metal pegs for legs. The reported beauty of this generation of robots is that they walk more naturally—I guess that’s so they can blend in.