American Insurance Group's bonus payouts continue to be this week's lead story, and today AIG CEO Edward Liddy is the punching bag star witness in front of the  House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government-Sponsored Enterprises.  At the moment, he is waiting in the wings as members of the committee listen to the testimony of regulators.  But the subcommittee has just released Liddy's prepared opening remarks.  Liddy employs the all too popular "mistakes were made" defense, and he says that he is aware that the patience of American taxpayers is "wearing thin."  

Where that patience is especially thin is on the question of compensation.  I am personally mindful both of the environment in which we are operating and the President's call for a more constrained compensation system.  At the same time, we are essentially operating AIG on behalf of the American taxpayer so that we can maximize the amount of money we pay back to the American government.  In order to do that, we have to continue to manage our business as a business--taking account of the cold realities of competition for customers, for revenues and for employees.  Because of this, and because of certain legal obligations, AIG has recently made a set of compensation payments, some of which I find distasteful.

You can read Liddy's statement here.  You can read his letter to Treasure Secretary Timothy Geithner here.  

And MSNBC is providing a live feed from the hearing: