The American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an insurance company with headquarters in New York City. In September 2008, the U.S. federal government provided the company with billions in credit to prevent an AIG bankruptcy. Despite the near-bankruptcy, several AIG executives made millions in salary and bonuses.
 
The AIG nickname of “Ain’t I Greedy?” (also ‘Aren’t I Greedy?”) has been cited in print since at least October 2008. The AIG nickname “All Investments Gone” has been cited since at least November 2008.
 
   
Wikipedia: American International Group
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) (NYSE: AIG) is an American insurance corporation. Its corporate headquarters are located in the American International Building in New York City. The British headquarters office is on Fenchurch Street in London, continental Europe operations are based in La Défense, Paris, and its Asian headquarters office is in Hong Kong. According to the 2008 Forbes Global 2000 list, AIG was once the 18th-largest public company in the world. It was listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average from April 8, 2004 to September 22, 2008.
 
AIG suffered from a liquidity crisis when its credit ratings were downgraded below “AA” levels in September 2008. The United States Federal Reserve Bank on September 16, 2008 created an $85 billion credit facility to enable the company to meet increased collateral obligations consequent to the credit rating downgrade, in exchange for the issuance of a stock warrant to the Federal Reserve Bank for 79.9% of the equity of AIG. The Federal Reserve Bank and the United States Treasury by May 2009 had increased the potential financial support to AIG, with the support of an investment of as much as $70 billion, a $60 billion credit line and $52.5 billion to buy mortgage-based assets owned or guaranteed by AIG, increasing the total amount available to as much as $182.5 billion. AIG subsequently sold a number of its subsidiaries and other assets to pay down loans received, and continues to seek buyers of its assets.
 
History
AIG history dates back to 1919, when Cornelius Vander Starr established an insurance agency in Shanghai, China. Starr was the first Westerner in Shanghai to sell insurance to the Chinese, which he continued to do until AIG left China in early 1949—as Mao Zedong led the advance of the Communist People’s Liberation Army on Shanghai. Starr then moved the company headquarters to its current home in New York City. The company went on to expand, often through subsidiaries, into other markets, including other parts of Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.
 
In 1962, Starr gave management of the company’s lagging U.S. holdings to Maurice R. “Hank” Greenberg, who shifted its focus from personal insurance to high-margin corporate coverage. Greenberg focused on selling insurance through independent brokers rather than agents to eliminate agent salaries. Using brokers, AIG could price insurance according to its potential return even if it suffered decreased sales of certain products for great lengths of time with very little extra expense. In 1968, Starr named Greenberg his successor. The company went public in 1969.
           
NYTimes.com—Floyd Norris Blog
October 10, 2008
7:40 pm
Heard on a late night talk show:
“AIG = “Ain’t I Greedy”
— dj
 
Austin (TX) American-Statesman
Don’t you know? AIG stands for Ain’t I Greedy
JOHN KELSO
Published 10:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 15, 2008
AUSTIN, Texas—My nominee for the Nobel Prize in Economics? How about those big shots over at AIG ?
 
Perhaps no group of Americans has tried to bolster the U.S. economy quite so much as the executives of the massive insurance company.
 
AIG, in case you didn’t know, stands for Ain’t I Greedy.
 
Topix
AIG layoffs come just before Christmas
FedUp
Oct 25, 2008
(...)
BTW: The layoff by “Aint I Greedy” hit close to home.
 
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog
Mar 13, 2009
Was the AIG Bailout a Gift to Goldman Sachs?
(...)
COMMENTS
Jessica
AIG = Allowing Irreversible Greed.
AIG = All in Greed.
AIG = Arn’t I Greedy.
AIG = A$#holes, in general.
Posted on: Mar 16, 2009 at 04:25 AM
   
UPI.com
And now AIG means ...?
Published: March. 17, 2009 at 7:46 PM
(...)
From the other end of the political spectrum, a poster to Too Conservative, a blog for northern Virginia Republicans, listed some appropriate renditions—“And It’s Gone,” “Ain’t I Greedy,” “All Investments Gone” and “Avarice Insolence Graft.”