Mark Riley  

The American International Group has become the Nation’s most reviled corporation, forcing Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and even Lehman Brothers into the background. Paying $165 million dollars in bonuses while taking $170 billion in taxpayer money will do that for you.

Yes, there have been a few apologists for AIG, like the New York Times article Tuesday that argued for the sanctity of contracts. Former White House spokesperson Dana Perino would have us believe most of the bonus money would go to middle class AIG workers. Neither of these arguments make the slightest bit of sense.

                                                         
There are several questions that has to be asked here. If most Americans assume bonuses should be paid based on performance, just who was it at AIG that wrote contracts mandating this money at the beginning of last year?

The answer is simple. That’s how the Masters of the Universe operate. Performance based bonuses are for someone else, not them. And make no mistake. AIG was not alone in paying bonuses no matter what.

The argument that the bonuses had to be paid to keep key executives doesn’t hold water either. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says 52 AIG employees who received retention bonuses left the company anyway.

The idea that the company’s financial products division, now notorious for running the company into the ground, would be the beneficiary of US taxpayers has lawmakers scrambling to create some form of redress.

Many, including the Obama Administration, said there was little that could be done at first. Public outrage has changed their tune. The president knows simmering anger over AIG has the potential to stop his recovery plans in their tracks.

AIG boss Edward Liddy, himself a beneficiary of big bonuses while chair of Allstate, will be visiting Congress Wednesday. I wouldn’t want to be him.




Would you? What would YOU say to Congress?