It Figures

$1 Billion

The effects of the widespread peanut butter recall could cost rural America’s peanut producers $1 billion in lost production and sales, according to testimony at a House subcommittee hearing.

That could be just the beginning, the head of the Georgia Peanut Commission told a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Small Business, according to prepared testimony obtained by The Associated Press. The recalls, prompted by a salmonella outbreak tied to peanut butter, have severely hurt the nation’s peanut producers, weakening pricing and limiting their ability to sell their products, according to the testimony. (AP)

$2.7 million

The amount Hawaii Insurance Commissioner J.P. Schmidt released for future workers’ compensation claims payments from the estate of the failed insurer HIH America Insurance Company of Hawaii Inc. Of that, $1 million was designated for 25 individual HIH Hawaii policyholders, and assets valued at $9 million were directed toward the California Insurance Department for moneys owed to the affiliated companies.

HIH Hawaii provided workers’ compensation insurance to businesses in the state. Financial troubles at its affiliated insurance companies in California and Nevada, and its parent company in Australia, made its continued operation hazardous to the public. It went into liquidation in 2001.

$170 billion

The latest amount in taxpayer money American International Group Inc. (AIG) has access to. The company recently reported a $61.7 billion quarterly loss, the worst in U.S. history. The same day, the Treasury provided AIG as much as $30 billion in additional aid from the $700 billion financial bailout program.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., called AIG “the greatest corporate failure in American history,” and needled the New York state insurance regulator Eric Dinallo and representatives from the Federal Reserve and Office of Thrift Supervision about the lack of oversight leading to the company’s collapse.