How AIG Is Wasting -- Oh I Mean Spending -- $150B of Our Money

Email Exchange Between the PR Team At AIG and Wonkette, America's funniest political blog. Wonkette, please forgive me for reposting your post, but it is too funny not to have spring up across the web in 10,000 places.

AIG Using Taxpayers’ $150 Billion To Annoy Comedy Blog

The government rescued insurance giant AIG from its own wretched, greedy incompetence by giving the evil company $80 billion $150 billion of your tax dollars. With this insane reward for being an epic failure, AIG was supposed to rebuild its core business — which is insurance, not gambling like a drunken fool and destroying the entire global economy in the process. Instead, AIG is burning through its bailout cash by sending absurd emails to political-comedy blogs demanding clarification on whether the $125 million of taxpayer dollars AIG is spending on English football sponsorships is simply a continuing waste of taxpayer millions or a renewed waste of taxpayer millions.

This is the first of three (3) emails your Wonkette editor received this morning from AIG Media Relations in New York:

From: ____.____@aig.com
To: ken@wonkette.com
Date: Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 9:49 AM
Subject: regarding your post: Your Most Recent ‘AIG Still Spends Absurd Amounts Of Taxpayer Money On Dumb Things’ News!
mailed-by aig.com

Ken:

You report that AIG is renewing its Manchester United sponsorship. That is not true. We are not renewing our sponsorship with Manchester United, we are in active discussions regarding our pre-existing contract, and in the interim we are eliminating related costs such as marketing, advertising and hospitality.

The story, which was sourced from a story by ABC News, reported that AIG “has no plans to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in sports team sponsorships.” That is simply inaccurate. AIG has canceled a number of sponsorships around the world. AIG has not renewed long-term sponsorship relationships with marquee names like the New York Yankees, New York Knicks, Houston Rockets, Houston Astros, Madison Square Garden, AIG Japan Open (Tennis), Irish Champion Hurdle (Horseracing), and New Orleans Jazz Fest.

AIG has only a handful of multi-year sponsorship contracts in effect. The company has had discussions with those organizations that we do not intend to renew those contracts when they expire. Regardless of the contractual situation, we are eliminating all costs associated with marketing, advertising and hospitality.

Please don’t hesitate to e-mail or call me if you want some additional clarity.

_____ _______
AIG Media Relations
______ _____ ____
New York, NY 10270
_____.______@aig.com

Your editor skimmed this weird e-mail, laughed at this outrageous attempt at massaging the image of a company whose initials literally stand for “American Inept Greed,” and decided to at least forward it to your associate editors, for laffs, with this note:

Ken Layne to Sara, Jim
Date: Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:07 PM
subject Fwd: regarding your post: Your Most Recent ‘AIG Still Spends Absurd Amounts Of Taxpayer Money On Dumb Things’ News!

These are the people who destroyed the global economy. It’s less surprising when you see how stupid they are, isn’t it?
- Show quoted text -

Your editor was finished thinking about the AIG email, but AIG was not finished thinking about your Wonkette! In fact, a new AIG email arrived while your editor was forwarding the first one to his colleagues:

From: ____.____@aig.com
To: ken@wonkette.com
Date: Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Subject: regarding your post: Your Most Recent ‘AIG Still Spends Absurd Amounts Of Taxpayer Money On Dumb Things’ News!
mailed-by aig.com

Ken:

If you are actively covering AIG, we’d like to be engaged with Wonkette to allow your readers to get answers about AIG directly from the company.

I’d like you to note that today, AIG announced some voluntary compensation restrictions that go beyond the requirements specified by TARP. AIG will have voluntary restrictions on executive compensation that include a $1 salary for its Chief Executive Officer; no 2008 annual bonuses and no salary increases through 2009 for AIG’s top-seven-officer Leadership Group; and no salary increases through 2009 for the 50 next-highest executives, in addition to other bonus, severance and retention award restrictions. AIG is also developing a funding structure to ensure that no taxpayer dollars are used for annual bonus or future cash performance awards for AIG’s “Senior Partners,” the top 60 members of management.

The details are laid out in a press release that we issued this morning (http://ir.aigcorporate.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=76115&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1230022&highlight=).

Let me know if you are interested in engaging. If so, we can establish some rules that are amenable for both of us.

Thank you.

_____ _______
AIG Media Relations
______ _____ ____
New York, NY 10270
_____.______@aig.com

Your editor was now officially annoyed — “establish some rules that are amenable for both of us”?! — and banged out the following reply:

From: ken@wonkette.com
To: _____._____@aig.com
Cc: “Sara K. Smith” “Jim Newell”
Date: Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:22 PM
subject Re: And while you are covering AIG…
mailed-by gmail.com

Dude, Wonkette is a political comedy blog. You live in New York, you work in “media relations,” and you don’t know Wonkette or Gawker or anything? Jesus fucking christ. This is how you clowns are spending EIGHTY BILLION DOLLARS of taxpayer money, whining to comedy blogs? Jesus fucking christ. I am going to post all of these, for hilarity.

The reply arrived moments later:

From: ____.____@aig.com
To: ken@wonkette.com
Date: Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Subject: RE: And while you are covering AIG…
mailed-by aig.com

Ken:

Can you give me a call please.

Nah dude. But we will run the correction you requested! In this post about AIG blowing $125 million of American taxpayers’ money on some limey soccer team, in England, we said AIG would “renew” the spending of $125 million in American taxpayers’ money on a limey soccer team, in England, when AIG says this insane waste of American bailout money is actually just a continuing thing, and not a renewal. Wonkette regrets that AIG got $150 billion in federal bailout money.