bartleby the scrivener | There. He said it. I feel a little better now.
"It was a failure of oversight by Treasury" that led to the spring's bonus fiasco, watchdog Neil Barofsky told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this morning, a failure for which he said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was ultimately responsible.
Treasury essentially abdicated its oversight duties of AIG's compensation structures to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which was "a recipe for disastrous consequences," said Barofsky...Ultimately, Geithner did not learn about the bonuses until March 10, three days before they were paid out, despite running the Treasury Department since January and, before that, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where officials knew about the payments last November. At that time, both parties agreed that there was no legal grounds to stop the payments, a correct determination, according to Barofsky. (ABC News)