AIG

Today in the soap opera of insurance bust AIG we found out that they are using bailout money in order to pay bonuses to the management that screwed the company up. As I have said in previous posts, most good working class Americans (such as myself) know that if you screw up royally at your job on a regular basis, you get a cardboard box and are asked to leave. Not only are they letting these people keep their jobs, they get bonuses that would make more Americans financially secure for the foreseeable future. They said they need to do this to "retain and recruit the best talent." If this is their idea of the best and the brightest, I cannot imagine the standards they set for the lousy talent!

I was concerned about an interview that Rep. Barney Frank did this evening on MSNBC. He said that the government was a "majority owner" of AIG given the bailout they were given and should go into the company and let them know that they should not be giving these bonuses out. While I know that the Treasury Department is working on trying to get some of the money back
from them, Frank using language like "majority owner" when talking about the government is very strong language and will turn a lot of people off from the administration's agenda and signal the possibility of socialism. I still they there need to be three strong sectors that work together to resolve public problems. Those that are in the center or even the right will think it is a strong move towards communism. The reality is we are only responsible for giving them the money to fix their mess and they needed to get themselves up for using it to manage themselves out of it. Also a staff shakeup might actually be okay for this!