Startling data about past money-making on AIG's misery, but first . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

L.A. Times: 'Move over, Al Gore: John McCain invented the BlackBerry'

IRIN: 'SOMALIA: "When you are hungry you will eat anything that does not eat you" '

CNN: 'Oil rallies as Wall Street gets a lifeline'

Salon: 'Sarah Palin's wasteful ways'

Slate: 'Fannie Mae and the Vast Bipartisan Conspiracy'

N.Y. Post: 'Rich Uncle: Feds "Buy" Insurance Giant AIG in $85B Rescue'

N.Y. Post: 'Mets' Division Lead Goes Up in Choke in D.C.'

N.Y. Post: 'Barbra At Her Woozy Best'

Slate: Hitchens: 'Pakistan is the problem: and Barack Obama seems to be the only candidate willing to face it'

Onion: 'Palin Unveils 9/11 Firefighter Cousin, Reformed Lesbian Niece, Naturalized Mexican Half Brother'

On the heels of yesterday's stunning bailout (N.Y. Times story) of giant insurer American International Group, you'll be reading stories about how the billionaire status of its former CEO (and still major shareholder) Maurice "Hank" Greenberg has taken a beating because of the recent precipitous drop in AIG's stock price.

Like yesterday's laughable New York Post story by James Covert:

Save your sympathy. What you're unlikely to read is that Greenberg, a pal of Henry Kissinger's, already bailed himself out before the Fed bailed out AIG. By the way, Greenberg didn't just "leave" AIG's boardroom "amid" a scandal. He was forced out and then was formally accused of fraud by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. (See CNN's May 2005 story for details.)

I know it's hackneyed to say "profits of doom," but it is what it is. (Oops, I did it again.)

This is how the other half of 1 percent of the richest Americans live:

SEC records reveal an incredible (only to us commoners) string of transactions since Greenberg's ouster in which he and his personally controlled entities realized hundreds of millions of dollars from selling their AIG stock.

Let's assume that Hammerin' Hank didn't know that his company's bubble was about to burst.

AIG is still (or was still, until you bought it) Greenberg's company despite his being forced out of the CEO job in 2005 because of alleged shenanigans for which he's still under investigation by the SEC and New York's current attorney general. It's still his company because he still controls the biggest chunk of shares in AIG, which is the world's biggest insurer.

As of July 15, 2008, three years after his ouster, one of Greenberg's other companies, his privately owned Starr International, still held 228 million shares of AIG. So it looks as if he really has taken a beating to his multibillionaire status. For instance, at 9:12 this morning, AIG's share price had fallen to $2.17. Last year at this time it was trading at about $70 a share.

But ever since his ouster, he and Starr have been selling gigantic chunks of shares for astounding proceeds, upwards of $20 million a day — day after day during some months.

Now, I'm not saying that this is unusual behavior on Wall Street. In fact, this kind of schmuckery is the norm, but it's almost never pointed out in mainstream news outlets.

Here's a timeline that you probably won't see elsewhere in the initial coverage of your latest bailout of rich people and their companies:

June 2007: AIG sues ex-CEO Greenberg and Greenberg's ex-CFO for $1 billion in damages "stemming from accounting troubles" on Hammerin' Hank's watch. MarketWatch's Peg Brickley writes at the time:

August 2007: AIG calls its exposure to subprime debt "minimal."

September 2007: Greenberg and his Starr International continue their immense sell-off of AIG stock, which is still priced at $66 or $67 a share.

The following figures are from SEC filings for Greenberg's transactions, through Starr, of AIG's shares. (See Yahoo's compilation.) They're listed by day, shares of AIG owned by Greenberg's Starr International and sold to stupid investors, and sale proceeds — I call them profits because Greenberg had paid either comparatively little or nothing to acquire those shares):

Sept. 4: 400,000 AIG shares sold, $26.4 million profit.

Sept. 5: 900 shares sold, $59,000 profit

Sept. 18: 400,000 shares sold, $26.6 million profit

Sept. 19: 800,000 shares sold, $53.9 million profit

Sept. 20: 300,000 shares sold, $20.1 million profit

Sept. 21: 300,000 shares sold, $20.1 million profit

Sept. 24: 275,400 shares sold, $18.5 million profit

Sept. 25: 324,600 shares sold, $21.8 million profit

Sept. 26: 300,000 shares sold, $20.1 million profit

Sept. 27: 300,000 shares sold, $20.2 million profit

Sept. 28: 300,000 shares sold, $20.2 million profit

Total for just that month? Close to a quarter of a billion dollars. (And that doesn't even count Greenberg's proceeds on his own sales of AIG stock. I'd give you those figures but my calculator overheated.)

October 17, 2007: Starr's profit-taking on AIG shares suddenly stops, according to the Yahoo compilation of SEC figures, only two weeks before AIG is about to reveal its third-quarter financials to the rest of Wall Street.

November 2007: Commentators are already turning really sour on AIG's stock, in part because of AIG's secrecy. At the same time, AIG management insists that things are hunky-dory despite its insuring the companies that are ensnared in the mortgage crisis.

For instance, TV loudmouth Jim Cramer, who often refers to himself in the third person, writes on the afternoon of November 7, 2007, a Wednesday:

And what is AIG's report that night? The AP's Madlen Read tells us the next day, on November 8, 2007:

December 13, 2007: Jim Cramer isn't buying AIG's line — or its stock. He writes:

December 20, 2007: Hank Greenberg himself exercises his options to acquire 3.7 million shares of AIG. The same day, his Starr International entity disposes of 4.8 million shares of AIG in a non-open-market transaction.

September 16, 2008: Wall Street finally has enough information on AIG. The government panics and bails out the company, saying it has to do it to prevent a global financial collapse.

If you own shares of AIG that you bought at $70 per and are now worth $2 per and want to sell them, you might try calling Hank Greenberg. He may still have enough cash to bail you out.

New figures for 2007 are grim, no matter how the press is reporting them.

Pay no nevermind to the stream of new stories bringing glimmers of good news about how Americans are faring in the last stages of the Bush Era.

The facts and figures for 2007 about who's living in poverty and who doesn't have health insurance and whose wages have shrunk are coursing through the Web right now, courtesy of the Census Bureau.

And these factoids are being misplayed left and right. Practically all of the media are simply rewriting the Census Bureau's press release.

You have to go straight to people who cut through the bullshit — and that includes the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Catholic Charities USA — if you want the straight scoop.

First, let's note, as most of the current stories de-emphasize — that almost 40 million Americans are living in poverty. That doesn't include the millions who are simply poor. As I noted on August 18, the federal poverty line is absurdly low.

As for the misplaying and downplaying of gloomy figures in today's coverage (which you'll see splashed across the media tonight and tomorrow), you'll have to plow through my fairly lengthy explanation with examples (sorry about that), but this is what I mean:

Judging by the AP account — which no doubt will be picked up by practically every other media outlet in the U.S. — the Census Bureau's latest figures for 2007 seem like fairly good news. Here's the AP:

As I write, the New York Times hasn't deigned to post anything yet. But the L.A. Times already has this:

A little better, though the headline is misleading because private insurance has actually fallen.

In any case, here's the real story — from the CBPP's Robert Greenstein:

Greenstein continues with a shrewd analysis that the standard media outlets simply won't ever do with such facts and figs:

Greenstein's analysis continues with worse news on a broader front:

Pretty good, and the CBPP gives you a link to the figures themselves.

Also good at plucking the right stats from those figures, Catholic Charities USA picks some that count: