Ex AIG Boss: It's Not My Fault

AIG’s former CEO tells CBS that the bonuses now sparking national outrage would not have happened under his watch. Hank Greenberg, ousted in 2005, said he doesn’t back such retention bonuses, blamed the firm's collapse on the "stupidity" of his successors, and thinks the current CEO should go. “When I was there, nobody had a contract in the company, including me. I didn't believe in them. If you didn't do the job, you didn't deserve to be there,” he said.

“We had bonuses based on performance. If you didn't perform, you didn't get a bonus,” he added. But a communications VP for the firm called it “absolutely astounding that Mr. Greenberg would claim that he never put in place retention agreements. His entire long-term management compensation was a retention agreement.” The current CEO, Edward Liddy, blamed Greenberg for AIG’s problems in testimony to Congress this week, the AP notes.
(More AIG stories.)