THE FEAR OF ALL SUMS DEPARTMENT

AIG UPGRADES BONUS TOTALS

NOT $9 MIL, NOT $120 MIL, BUT $242 MIL

Are you sure this time? No, really, really  sure?

     

AIG official have come up with yet another figure for the bonuses given out to employees in 2008 while the company was going under and taking tax dollars from the Treasury.

AIG spokesman Nick Ashooh told Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md) that the latest figures for bonuses stood at $242 million, far outpacing the company's answer to the same question from POLITICO.com in March. At that time, AIG admitted bonuses totaled $120 million. 

And that answer blew past the answer given a month earlier by CEO Edward Liddy before the House Financial Services Subcommittee when he told the committee members bonuses totalled "in the range of $9 million."

Ashooh told reporters the differences in the totals reported reflected the correct answer to the specific questions asked them. He said his office has answered "what they thought they were being asked."

In reality, AIG was asked a simple question: How much bonus money did they give out when they had run the company into the ground and taken bailout money from the United States government and taxpayers. 

Ashooh's excuse: "It's complicated."

AIG's evasiveness leads some to believe that further revelations are possibly forthcoming.