Banks, Bailouts | featured news

President Obama said Wednesday that no one in his administration had been responsible for supervising ailing insurance giant AIG but that ultimately, the buck stops with him.

The chief executive officer of failed insurance conglomerate AIG acknowledged Wednesday that the company's multimillion-dollar bonuses were "distasteful" to many and had provoked a firestorm of wrath.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is not a lawyer, nor does he play one on TV. So when just about every question at Tuesday's afternoon briefing concerned bonuses at insurance giant AIG, Gibbs had a non-answer at the ready. "I'm not a contracts lawyer," he said at one point, later explaining that he was "not a contract lawyer," either. When asked whether the president could simply deny more money to AIG unless it scrapped bonuses, he repeated: "Again, I'd refer you to a contract lawyer, which I'm not one."

President Barack Obama declared Monday that insurance giant American International Group is in financial straits because of "recklessness and greed" and said he intends to stop it from paying out millions in executive bonuses.

Insurance giant reveals it paid more than $75B in taxpayer dollars in the final months of 2008 to numerous banks, as well as U.S. municipalities.

Freddie Mac, facing mounting damage from the U.S. housing crisis, said Wednesday it will ask the government for nearly $31 billion in additional aid after posting a gargantuan loss of more than $50 billion last year.

Bernanke accuses company of exploiting gaps in the system, says government 'had no choice' on bailout.

U.S. stock markets plunged by 4 percent to close at the lowest levels in nearly 12 years, igniting fresh concern over the depth of the financial crisis and where the bear market would find a bottom.

The federal government agreed Monday to provide an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to the insurer, even as it reported the biggest quarterly loss in history.

American International Group Inc's board approved the latest overhaul of a U.S. government rescue on Sunday that includes $30 billion in new equity and other measures aimed at bolstering the struggling insurer, according to a source familiar with the matter.