Current chief executive officer of AIG, the insurance giant which has recently come under fire for paying bonuses to executives after receiving billions in taxpayers’ money to “save” the economy, appeared before the financial services subcommittee in a hearing entitled, “American International Group’s Impact on the Global Economy: Before, During, and After Federal Intervention.”

Chairman of the financial services subcommittee, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), “The ultimate objective is to save the American and world economy,” adding that in the grand scheme of things, bonuses and compensation are not important. “The most important thing is to make sure we survive.”

“From this day on, Mr. Liddy better come in and tell us he has a plan to solve the problem and he’s not going to interfere with the economic recovery of the United States anymore.”

“I thank this opportunity to appear before you, the biggest shareholders, the American people,” opened Mr. Liddy.

Mr. Liddy said roughly the same thing he wrote for the Washington Post, saying that he did feel AIG had to pay it’s bonuses, in a compensation program put in place by the previous administration — Liddy says honouring the contracts is the only way to avoid a “systemic shock” to the economy that the assistance thus-far has been designed to relieve. Liddy went on to call these payments “distasteful,” but required, due to the “risk being unacceptably high.”

There are 116,000 employees around the world, said Liddy, who share one belief; “when you owe someone money, you pay that money back.”

Speaking on the patience of American taxpayers “wearing thin,” Liddy appealed to the public, saying that all their decisions respond to the same question: “Will this action help our ability to pay monies back to the government, or hurt it?”

Liddy concluded that he has “asked those who received retentions payments in excess of $100,000 or more,” to step forward and “do the right thing” and return at least half those payments. He said some of those who received payments have already offered to return 100% of this.

Additionally, did Liddy confirm that he would work with Andrew Cuomo, N.Y. Attorney General in effort to restore the funds to their rightful shareholders.

“I want to thank the Federal Reserve, and the U.S. Treasury and the American taxpayer for making the extraordinarily tough call, to provide that support. In doing so, we’ve been able to preserve jobs, and most importantly protect policy holders who rely on the promise of insurance to secure their well-being,” said Liddy. “We are moving urgently on a business plan designed to maximize the value on our core businesses, so that in turn we can maximize the amount that we pay to the American taxpayers.”

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