AIG Bonus Thoughts

Everyone is outraged over the bonus money going to the division in AIG that apparently was one of the leading causes of the economic mess we are in right now.
And we have a right to be.

This is wrong. Absolutely wrong.

But let’s look beyond the surface to the rest of the wrong here before we start up a lynch mob.

The legislature and the administration, as far back as Clinton, have resisted any attempts to regulate some of these items that are now broken and taking the rest of us with them.

In their effort to be “fair” to everyone, some factions of the legislature have encouraged lenders to make loans to folks who were in no position to pay for them.

I have been watching ads for years promising credit to folks, regardless of credit history, or income, or… and thought, even with my limited experience on such things, this can’t be good. It is going to catch up to someone somewhere, sometime.

I underestimated a bit though because it caught up to everyone pretty much everywhere.

Anyway, the problem isn’t just the AIG execs. They just took advantage of the situation that the government presented to them. That doesn’t excuse them. They need to be tried, fairly and they need to be punished.

But this is not the way to accomplish it.

For the congress of the United States of America to write a special law in order to tax that money back from the is so terribly wrong. And even if such an act is in anyway legal or constitutional, it terrifies me.

If they can do this now, to those people, they can do it anytime to anyone for any reason they chose!

Can you just imagine what potential that has for the business climate in our nation? Everyone would be looking over their shoulder all the time. It could potentially cause that great financial calamity that everyone is trying to avoid.

Please, write your congressional representatives, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. We must not allow this to gain any traction or we are going to head down a road that will be very difficult to recover from.