House Proceeding 03-18-09 on Mar 18th, 2009 :: 1:04:40 to 1:11:50
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1:04:36 to 1:04:57( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: mr. klein: obviously strong feelings. i'm going to yield the balance of my time back to you and if you would consider yielding to mr. yarmuth, i would appreciate that. the speakepro tempore: the gentleman yields bk. the balance of the time is given to mr. yarmuth of kentucky. mr. yarmuth: it gives me great pleasure to yield to my good

1:04:40 to 1:11:50( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Bruce Braley

1:04:58 to 1:05:18( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: friend from iowa who served with me on the oversight committee last year and now serves on the energy and commerce committee, mr. braley from iowa. mr. braley: i thank my friend and i remind my friend from kentucky that i actually had the privilege of following him immediately during that hearing in questioning the c.e.o. of

1:05:19 to 1:05:40( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: a.i.g. and i have to tell you as one of the more shocking examples of corporate greed that i ever heard in my lifetime. and i have lived 51 years in this country, but one of the things we have talked about is the reality that we as taxpayers now own approximately 80% of this company because of the investment that we've made. so my recommendation to treasury

1:05:41 to 1:06:01( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: secretary geithner and president obama is that we rename a.i.g. to properly reflect and offer a lasting lesson to the american people of what happened here. i'm going to recommend that we rename this company arrogance inspires greed, because that is

1:06:02 to 1:06:23( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: exactly what we learned on october 7, 2008, when we had a hearing in the oversight committee and got to the bottom of this problem. let's have a short history lesson of exactly what led this company into the crisis at brought it to the american government for help. we learned that the principal

1:06:24 to 1:06:46( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: actor responsible for the did he mies of a.i.g. was an employee named joseph cassano and he operated the london office of the financial product division which offered credit default swaps that helped bring a.i.g. if you go back to the presidential election,

1:06:47 to 1:07:07( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: recall that cnn was running a feature during this time that had the top 10 villains responsible for the collapse of our financial system. the number one culprit that they identified was joseph cassano. here's why. mr. cassano, who is president of this division, was paid $280

1:07:08 to 1:07:28( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: million in cash during the last eight years of his employment, far more than the c.e.o.'s that a.i.g. made. and the bulk of his money came from, guess what? a bonus program. in fact, for every dollar that his unite made, mr. cassano and the executives that worked with

1:07:29 to 1:07:50( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: him got 30 cents on the dollar, and this was a unit that was trading in trillions of dollars of credit default swaps. . to make matters worse, on february 2, 2008, a.i.g. posted losses, record losses of $5.3 billion and the main reason for

1:07:51 to 1:08:11( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: those losses was that mr. cassano's division had lost $11 billion. so what did a.i.g. do? well, as a responsible corporate citizen they fired mr. cassano and the very next day it gave him a searches -- a severance agreement that mr. yarmuth was talking about paying him $1

1:08:12 to 1:08:32( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: million a month and allowing him to keep that $34 million in uninvested bonuses. so he was paid essentially to do something $1 million a month. and so when we had this hearing in october of 2008, six months later, and these corporate c.e.o.'s who were in charge of the company during the period of

1:08:33 to 1:08:55( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: time when he was receivinghose payments were called to account for the conduct of this company, these are the questions and answers that i got. the firs willemstad. he let me start with you as c.e.o. of a.i.g., you had

1:08:56 to 1:09:16( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: authority until september 17, 2008, to consell mr. cassano's contract but you never did that, did you? his answer, no. second c.e.o., mr. sullivan. as c.e.o. from march 11, 2008, when this severance agreement

1:09:17 to 1:09:37( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: was signed between a.i.g. and mr. cassano throh june 15, 2008, you had the authority to cancel his conlting agreement for cause but you never took that action, did you? his answer, that is correct. think about that the one persondentified as the principal culprit for the financial collapse of this

1:09:38 to 1:09:58( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: country and the global economy continued to receive $1 million a month after driving this truck off the cliff. it was shocking then, it's more shocking now because the losses continued to mount. and what the american people are demanding right now is justice by superior firepower.

1:09:59 to 1:10:19( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: and we in the house and our colleagues in the senate and the white house and the treasury department have to provide that firepower because the american people are demanding it and they deserve nothing less. but there were a lot of things that came up during that hearing, and one of them we lked about was this philosophy

1:10:20 to 1:10:40( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: that less regulation is always better. well, one of the things that which "60 minutes" covered in two excellent stories was that this giant credit default swap market, which at the time was estimated to be between $63 trillion and $75 trillion, 90%

1:10:41 to 1:11:02( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: of it was the same thing was what you and i would consider gambling. so back in 2000 when they had a chance to get a handle on this and provide some type of governmental oversight, what happened? well, they could have classified it as insurance and made it subject to insurance regulation in all 50 states. but they decided not to.

1:11:03 to 1:11:26( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: so then they could have decided, well, this is gambling. let's make it subject to gaming regulations in all 50 states. they decided not to. well, it's kind of like a security. maybe we should make this part the securities and exchange commission. they didn't because of this push against any form of regulation.

1:11:27 to 1:11:47( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: so now in 2009 we are sitting here with at the state or federal level of this enormous credit default swap market. that has to change and it's part of the ongoing regulatory reform we are pushing in the 111th congress. we have to do it and we have to be smart about how we do it so we don't find ourselves in this

1:11:48 to 1:11:52( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: position again.