AIG: Failure Is the New Success

What was AIG thinking, taking ALL $165M of most recent bailout funds and paying bonuses to over 70 members of Financial Products, the very unit that brought about the company's collapse?! Unfortunately the buck does not stop here. AIG will pay out $450 million total in bonuses and "retention pay" to Financial Products employees. These payments are spread out over 400 employees of the division. So far the only figure that has really been reported by the media is the aforementioned $165 million payable to those 70 high-ranking staff. Now how exactly a company pays itself that much money when AIG lost $61.7 billion last quarter is unfathomable. It looks like they're trying to reward themselves for a job poorly done.

Talk about corporate welfare. Yet if a single, low-income mother needs help to buy milk for her child or financial assistance to attend college, the GOP will tell us that that is "bad" welfare. I guess the idea is that we should [continue to] provide "good" welfare only for the rich as they continue to drain our economy.

There are three dominant forces interacting in society today: government, business, and citizens. All three must individually exert enough influence on each other that each one knows they had better not act out of turn or there will be consequences. Unfortunately, in this age of "greedy" capitalism, the forces of big business and government have colluded to enrich themselves and ensure continued domination of political and economic systems. In the process, the people have become shut out of the dialogue, powerless, and cannot force the other two parties to act as good corporate citizens and watchmen concerned for the greater good of society. May God help us all!