By J. Michael Sharman, Contributing Writer
Dear Sen.Warner, Sen. Webb, and Rep. Cantor:
As my elected representatives, I would appreciate it if you could use your resources to find out the answer to a question for me as a U.S. taxpayer: Did American International Group, Inc. give $70 billion of its bailout money to China?
The New York Times says AIG has only named the recipients for $50 billion of the $120 billion it has paid out to “trading partners” on its failed “credit default swaps” and refuses to disclose all the other trading partners who it paid off with our bailout money.
AIG admits it has used tens of billions of our “stimulus” money to pay off its trading partners such as France’s Societe Generale; Germany's Deutsche Bank; Britain's Barclays Bank; Switzerland's UBS Bank; and France's BNP Paribas ; Calyon, the investment banking arm of France’s Crédit Agricole; Holland’s Rabobank; The Royal Bank of Scotland; CORAL Purchasing Limited of Ireland; Germany’s Dresdner Bank AG; and Canada’s BMO Financial Group.
It is extremely hard to figure out why the U.S. taxpayers gave $170 billion to bail out this business which was made in China – literally.
Founded in Shanghai in 1919 as American Asiatic Underwriters by Cornelius Vander Starr, parts of the company were moved to New York in 1949 after the communists came to power. But since 1931, the original company continued to operate in Hong Kong under the names American International Assurance Company and American International Underwriters, Limited.
American International Group, Inc. (AIG), is indeed, a Delaware corporation, but it is only a holding company for AIG’s United States and foreign subsidiaries.
One of those foreign companies is American International Assurance (AIA), which is AIG’s main flagship in China, with about 20,000 employees and more than 20 million customers throughout Asia: in Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
This is a Chinese company, not an American company, doing business throughout Asia, and AIA is now going to be listed and sold on an Asian stock exchange, according to a May 18, 2009 article in one of India’s main newspapers, The Hindu.
Another of AIG’s noteworthy foreign companies is China America Insurance Company (CAIC), which was formed in 1980 as a 50-50 joint venture between “AIG companies” and the People's Insurance Company of China (PICC). (TIME magazine reports that AIG also owns twenty per cent of the People's Insurance Company of China. )
Other AIG member companies in China include: AIG General Insurance Company China Limited (AIG General); AIG Global Investment Corporation (Asia), Limited; AIG Business Consulting Company Limited (AIGBC) ; AIG-Huatai Fund Management Company Limited ; AIG Guarantee (Dalian) Limited; AIG Guarantee (Nanjing) Limited and AIG Private Bank Limited, etc.
AIG Private Bank Ltd. was the first foreign private bank to receive approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission to open a representative office in Shanghai. Its main address, however, is Zurich, Switzerland.
AIG Global Investment got China’s central government approval to become the first foreign firm to control a Chinese fund management company, Huatai Securities.
After its first round of U.S. bailouts to AIG, in late October, 2008, AIG did not invest in GM or Chrysler but rather it bought a 13.5% stake in Chongqing Lifan Industry Group Co., China’s largest privately-owned Chinese automobile and motorcycle manufacturer.
There are many, many more examples that can be given to suggest that AIG is really more of a Chinese company than an American one, but as you can see, the examples above are reason enough for me to ask you, Sen. Warner, Sen. Webb, and Rep. Cantor, as my representatives in Congress, if you could use your resources to find out for me as a U.S. taxpayer:
Did American International Group, Inc. give $70 billion of its bailout money to China?
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