Bonuses in the AIG poker game: We stole it fair and square

Now what happens next when AIG files for bankruptcy?

I see armed villagers with torches...

The Govt. should have left these companies go bankrupt in the first place... all of them, AIG, GM, the banks, etc. If tax payers wanted to invest in one of these companies, we would. Why is the Govt. getting involved? Looks like de-privatization in some third world country!!

As details emerge, it becomes apparent that the AIG bailout was a self-serving act by former Treasury Secretary Paulson to save his buddies at Goldman-Sachs, Citi-Bank and Bank of America, in return for which he has received significant kickbacks in the form of profit from his own stocks. That said, the problems at AIG are due to the highly incompetent and unqualified people at the top echelons of the company from the top down, most of whom not only remain employed but are getting retention bonuses to continue their rip-off of the American taxpayer.

Just remember, AIG's corporate headquarters are located at 70 Pine Street/72 Wall Street, New York City, an address which should be bulldozed to the ground, as it is nothing but a plague-infested rat's nest, full of vermin.

Tell your congressman that enough is enough - shut AIG down now before it costs us any more money. The only losers will be other crooks.

Look, y'all: The game being played now has little to do with "investor confidence" -- and everything to do with funneling the Big Bucks to the "right people", whose economic and political power will increase exponentially in the coming hard times.

If the economic models which show a transitory period of deflation followed by rampant hyper-inflation (all those trillions we're printing WILL catch up to us), those "right people" will need every last billion they can squeeze out of Bam-Bam just to maintain a millionaire life-style.

It's just a simple(!) transference of power. Eisenhower warned about the military/industrial establishment; he could not have foreseen the military/financial/government complex.

You think your Congressperson is gonna listen to you in the face of that kind of pressure, with that kind of money to grease the wheels, well ... best of luck to ya!

let aig go into bankruptcy and fire all these bankers.. greedy and cant do the work well...i got laid off....

the IRS can sieze or accounts when ever they want,do it to then,let them sue us..

Such crap. AIG's response that they were "contractually obligated" to pay out these bonuses is total BS. The government (sadly) voids legitimate, bona fide contracts between private parties all the time and they could do that here too. For instance, they did this to the landlords that leased property to Washington Mutual for the WaMu branches. The Feds essentially tore up those leases and told the landlords, too bad. In many cases, these lanlords had spent tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on capital improvement, broker commissions, etc in order to enter into a lease with WaMu. The Feds told JPMorgan (who took over WaMu after the FDIC seized them) that JPMorgan wasn't obligated for all those leases and that the Fed wasn't going to held liable either. When the hell is someone (Hello, Obama, are you there?) going to step up and put an end to this NON-TRANSPARENCY, backroom deal making and excuse making?

The biggest mystery of all is why we are surprised that the people who cheated the system with these financial instruments are now doing it to us again by receiving bonuses out of our pockets.

Void the bonuses. Let the executives sue for their money. Let's see if they want to risk their lives by showing up in court and letting people know who they are and where they live.

AIG playing games with our money it's a joke to them using tax payers money and they're getting rich on us period, they should be stopped anyway the government can,even the President should control them or fired the heads and start over again .

AIG caused the crisis? I believe that the government backed institution caused the crisis by removing the risk aspect of giving mortgages to people who didn't deserve them and previous governments who created the regulations that removed the risks. Also, the Fed who made money cheap which always leads to malinvestment.

It's proved that psychologically, the fear or loss is bigger than greed. Well, the government fucked up really bad by removing the risk part out of the equation so the fear of loss had no reason to exist.