Well, shit. I agree with a Republican?? I may have to go kill myself along with all the AIG execs!!

Why didn't the Republicans commit seppeku after the elections? Have they no honor either? They lost face and yet those zombies still walk among us as if there was something left for them down here. They need to go away...and take their friends and contributors at A.I.G. with them.

Congress should just do a rapid pass on a 110% AIG bonus tax just for people who worked in management of that division.

Nice take here:

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/16/is-obama-finally-pus.html

Don't these silly businessmen know that only politicians can squander a ton of money and still expect to be rewarded? Last time I checked, politicians can also vote themselves a pay raise.

Congressional pay raises only go into effect after a House election, per the 27th Amendment. So all Representatives and 1/3rd of Senators technically do not vote themselves a pay raise. It's whoever holds the seat after the election that gets the raise (which, due to other factors, is usually the same person, but that's another issue).

Put a stop payment on that last bail out check they got. This is honestly just sickening, no matter how you look at it.

i wish we can have this outrage over no-bid military contracts, blank checks for wars, billions vanishing in Iraq, etc

There was and still is plenty of outrage, where have you been living for the last eight years, under a rock? Do you remember the RNC in '04?

Staying in Iraq and escalating in Afganistan sounds more like LBJ to me.

Fire their asses. Abrogate the contracts. Let the fuckers sue. Don't settle. It'll take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to trial. Then let a jury decide whether they get the bonuses.

Ignoring the law because it's inconvenient was bad before January 20, and it's still bad today.

However that doesn't mean that the contracts actually require the bonuses to be paid, as discussed here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/16/aig/ . Though I believe some of the proposed remedies are also illegal I think they would be bills of attainder, but that's another debate.

Only if you are a partisan hack on whatever side of the fence. Most normal people would say what TGirl said. There is a life outside of spin, you know.

Ah fuck, that was a response to Ides. And a fairly snappy one, if I do say so myself.

early in the running for "best off-color political statement of 2009."

cheers, senator grassley!

It's a shame this Senator didn't suggest the same thing to Bush for bringing dishonor upon the entire country.

This is really similar to the whole earmarks debate. Yes, these bonuses are bad, but they are a tiny fraction of the money that was given to AIG. Billions went through AIG to other banks who were owed under the debt obligations.

So if you want to focus on the bonuses, maybe bankruptcy sounds like it would have been a better option. But under bankruptcy, not only would there be no bonuses, but none of those banks who were owed would have been paid, either, and who knows what would have happened to the insurance side of the business. IMO, those ramifications outweigh the minor pain of seeing these unwarranted bonuses being paid out.

In a perfect world, of course, the bailout would have had some better conditions and oversight.

Buyer beware indeed. Grassley has been a Senator since '81. Seems to me he can take plently of blame too.

Seems he neverminds the bonuses called farm subsidies! $16 billion a year.

I hear suicide is painless and it brings on many changes

What's say, ferret-face?