The AIG bonuses now being debated in Congress and everywhere else represent about .001 percent of annual GDP. If a typical Congressman spent that fraction of a 2000 hour work year on the topic, it would consume only about 1 minute of his or her time.
Yes, I know, that calculation is silly in many ways, but here is my point: Regardless of how outraged you are about the AIG bonuses, it is probably not an optimal allocation of resources for our elected leaders to spend large amounts of time and energy on the topic. The economy has bigger problems right now, and it would be better to focus attention on those.
The thing is that in theory, I agree that the bonuses should not be paid. I acknowledge the argument that it would be dangerous for Congress to set a precedent that it could cut pay for these "bailed out" companies whenever it felt like it, but I don't think it's that persuasive. If you could just flip the switch and have the money not be paid, I guess that is preferable to what is happening now.
But that can't happen. Getting the bonus money back will require either money, in the form of lawsuits, or time (a.k.a., money) in the form of congressional proposals and debate. In the end, it's not a slippery slope problem (i.e., it's not like if we pay AIG bonuses, then this will set a horrible precedent) because the AIG bailout was set up hastily by the Federal Reserve last September without any restrictions on stuff like this. Restrictions that now exist on all relevant companies. And for the love of God, stop comparing this with the auto companies ("I find it funny how automakers need to grovel while Wall Street gets blank checks"). Yeah, there's a bit of that, but that's ignoring a crucial component of the story: Namely, that a significant source of the automakers' plight was high wages and benefits for workers that needed to be cut in order to maintain any semblance of viability.
Lastly -- I forgot who recently posted on this, but it was a good post. It was about how, above a certain monetary amount, say $10 million, all reasonable discussion goes out the window and everything becomes abstract. So regular people cannot differentiate between $10M and $10B -- the reaction to both is "Wow, that's a lot." And yet $10B is a lot more than $10M. Like, A LOT. So maybe people should realize that in the scheme of things -- with "the scheme of things" referring to the $800B stimulus and $11 trillion national debt -- $170 million is really not worth all this fuss. It's pure grandstanding on the part of egoistic and gunning-for-reelection politicians. And to hear Chuck Schumer say "we need to get that money back into the taxpayers' pockets" is just so fucked up on so many levels...
