As Kissinger Protested, AIG's Greenberg Feted at CFR: Some Crimes Forgotten

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 7, updated with video -- Some crimes can never be forgotten, while others escape even articulation. Monday in Manhattan an old man chanted "Kissinger, mass murderer" in front of the Waldorf Astoria.

To the side of the entrance another protester with Occupy Wall Street on his jacket called "shame" to men in tuxedos, "love your botox" to companions on their arms.

Inside the New York Historical Society was giving an award to Henry Kissinger. Outside protesters held signs ranging from Vietnam to Cyprus and Angola, Cambodia to Bangladesh. "There's blood on your bow tie," an older women shouted. Soon the police would come. Inner City Press was told to move, but didn't.

While the protest was announced at a General Assembly at Zuccotti Park / Liberty Square, it was small by Occupy Wall Street standards. Many of the protesters had been on this beat for some time, with weathered signs about East Timor and apartheid, also Salvador Allende.

(c) MRLee
At Waldorf, Devil's sign says "We are waiting for you, Kissinger"

It was a street meeting, in a sense, of the new and old worlds of protest. When the police tried to move an ornery older man off "their" sidewalk, call went up for cameras. The man was scarcely moved. Inner City Press filmed it - video here and below.

A mere twenty blocks north on Park Avenue, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg of AIG infamy was similarly honored at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he introduced and questioned the chief executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang.

(c) MRLee
Hank Greenberg of C.V. Starr & Donald Tsang, no protesters

An oil painting of Greenberg hung on CFR's wood paneled walls: he is honorary vice chairman of the organization. He let his politics hang out, asking David Tsang how fast construction can be done in Hong Kong, without all the local protests.

But how has Greenberg escaped Occupy Wall Street's protests? On a recent traipse through midtown, the names of Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America were chanted.

Even Citigroup's founder and former CEO Sandy Weill appeared on a sign, albeit with a pig nose. But nary a mention of Greenberg or of AIG.

When the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision Friday announced its list of 29 global systemically important institutions -- read, Too Big To Fail -- eight were based in the US, but AIG was not among them.

There were the Big Four -- Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo -- and Goldman Sach, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon and even Boston-based State Street.

But AIG, so central in the crisis and such on a conduit for the bailouts, was not on the list. And while Occupy Wall Street marchs have targets Goldman and Chase, and the Bank of America across Broadway on Liberty, AIG on Pine Street has escaped.

So Greenberg smirks in CRF's paneled walls -- Inner City Press was not allowed a question -- and may have been present, at least in spirit, at the ceremony for Henry Kissinger downtown. And so it goes in New York, even amid Occupy Wall Street.

Before Global Model UN, Financial Sponsors' Names Disappear, Malaysia on Refugees

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/gmun1malaysia020410.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 4 -- As the UN promotes its upcoming Global Model United Nations, to be held in Malaysia, questions arose about previous corporate sponsorships of the event, and of some participants' travel. Inner City Press asked UN official Eric Falt about listed 2009 "sponsors" including Nestle and AIG affiliate C.V. Starr. Video here, from Minute 31:13.

Falt said he thought the deal with Nestle had fallen through, and hadn't heard of "the other" sponsor, AIG's C.V. Starr. Later he sent the following explanation:

With regard to Nestle, we had been in discussion with them last year to possibly sponsor students from developing countries who could not afford to attend the first conference in Geneva. In this end, this did not happen but the information relating to their expected sponsorship somehow remained on the website. As an admittedly late update, Nestle's name has now been removed from the website as a sponsor.

Since students are responsible for paying their own expenses (i.e., travel and accommodations), we encouraged them to seek their own funding from local enterprises. The names of other sponsors you mentioned who were also listed as “SPONSORS who provided financial assistance to Global Model UN Delegates” were provided to us by the students themselves. The United Nations did not have any direct connection with any of these sponsors. In any case, I would agree that this is potentially confusing and we have therefore removed this list of "secondary" sponsors from the website as well.

We're not sure that the solution to this "confusion" is to remove information about who is paying to fly delegates to the Global Model UN. If AIG (or Nestle) is paying, it should be known.

During the press conference, Mr. Falt said that the UN reviews potential corporate sponsor under rules promulgated by the UN Global Compact -- it's not "anything goes," he said. But the Global Compact has as a member, for example, PetroChina which is under fire for its engagement with the Al Bashir government of Sudan. If there are standards, what are they? And is the solution removing the names of sponsors, even "secondary" sponsors, from the UN's website?

Inner City Press also asked Malaysia's Ambassador about human rights complaints against his country for treatment of refugees, and crackdowns on free press. He graciously responded that these must be seen in the "context of the country itself... we have three major groups, and many smaller." He said that although Malaysia has not joined the Refugee convention, it still implements. But there are stories of mistreatment of asylum seekers, for example from Myanmar, here.

Will these type of issues -- UN engagement with corporations like Nestle, AIG or even PetroChina, and the host country's treatment of asylum seekers, for example from Myanmar -- be allowed to be debated at the 2010 Global Model UN? We'll see. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/gmun1malaysia020410.html

At UN, Stiglitz Hits Bonuses and Subprime, Says 1% of Bailout Straight to Poor Countries

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un2stiglitz032709.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 27 -- In the run-up to the G20 meeting in London, economist Joseph Stiglitz spoke at the UN against irrational incentives in the financial services field -- read, the AIG and Citigroup bonus -- and in favor of the idea of a Financial Products Safety Commission, like the agencies conducting pre-release reviews of medicines and even electronics such as toasters.

Stiglitz noted that banks rush to exploit lower income and minority Americans with subprime loans has now damaged economies all over the world. And, we note, rather than accountability, those who engaged in predatory lending and securitizing have received bailouts. Whether any of this will be meaningfully addressed by the G20 is not known.

The UN's main pitch at the G20 is, with some vagueness and confusion, a request for $1 trillion. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made the request in a March 20 letter to G20 participants, then found himself unable to repeat the number when standing on camera next to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The next day, however, when Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas is despite the seeming backtrack Ban stands behind the $1 million figure, she said yes. She acknowledged that most of the $1 trillion is money already promised, but noted that Ban is asking for $25 billion on top of pre-existing ODA commitments of $100 billion, and that the rest of the trillion includes, for example, lending by the International Monetary Fund.

The Secretary of what's become known as the Stiglitz Commission, appointed by President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, answered Inner City Press' question to Stiglitz about Ban's $1 trillion idea. He did not address the number, but rather to whom such money should go: directly to lower income countries, he said, and not to intermediaries like the World Bank -- or the UN or UN Development Program.

What Stiglitz' views are on providing cash with no conditions to governments like those of Myanmar or North Korea is not known. The IMF has been asked about conditions on a $1.9 billion loan it is negotiating with Sri Lanka, the proceeds of which the government has said may be used for camps for internally displaced people from which the IDPs cannot leave or receive visitors, even from family members: detention camps. Using a percentage of the bailouts to fund interment would give a new meaning to the UN system phrase, "Vulnerability Fund." To be continued.

Footnote: several reporters at Stiglitz's March 26 press conference joked afterwards about his lines that he not only predicted the financial meltdown, but also wrote the first academic paper supporting micro-lending. This last claim seems dubious, unless one discounts academics in, for example, Bangladesh. Maybe with whatever turns out to be their share of the requested $1 trillion, Bangladesh can more widely promote its scholars.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un2stiglitz032709.html

In DC, Obama Officials Defend Bailouts of AIG and Citigroup, Summers Speaks of Fear

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/dc2tarp031309.html

WASHINGTON, March 13 -- The ongoing bailout of insurer AIG and its counterparties was apologized for but defended by a range of Obama administration officials this week. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, until recently the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and before that at the IMF, said he hated to have to bailout AIG, but "it's systemic."

His advisor Gene Sperling, a member of President Bill Clinton's economic team, said the Obama administration took office only to find AIG too big to fail, implying that this was entirely attributable to the two terms of George W. Bush. But AIG was allowed to grow without control under Bill Clinton, just as Citigroup was increasingly unsupervised under the tenure at the New York Fed of Timothy Geithner, as CitiFinancial got deeper into predatory lending (click here for Inner City Press reports on that.)

Friday in the White House Barack Obama met and then faced the Press with Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve in the time before Bill Clinton. Volcker rarely used his regulatory powers, at least not to protect consumers from predatory lending. And yet now these are the people, along with Clinton's Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who are defending massive transfers to Citigroup and AIG, all the while laying blame everywhere except upon themselves.

Footnote: Gene Sperling, recounting his time as an advisor to the TV show "The West Wing," said without irony that "We don't have to rely on President Bartlett anymore -- we have Barack Obama!" He said that securitization is "part of the solution." Certainly that's music to the ears of Citigroup and AIG, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. One wag wondered, concluding the week in DC, it is Gene Sperling or the Twilight Zone's Rod Sterling?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/dc2tarp031309.html