He's going after AIG. Good.
President Obama publicly fumed today over plans by the bailed-out insurance giant AIG to reward it executives with $165 million worth of bonuses and asked his treasury secretary to "pursue every single legal avenue" to block them.As my other friend Chris noted last night, if we just let AIG go bankrupt, then they won't have any of those pesky legal commitments to pay their staff hundreds of millions in bonuses. I'm not saying we dissolve the company - I'll leave it to wiser economic minds to determine whether that's safe for the rest of us. I'm talking put the company into bankruptcy and get rid of all of those pesky employee benefits contracts that Republicans love to rail against.
The insurance giant is paying out $165 million in retention bonuses to execs.
"This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed," the president said.
"Under these circumstances, it's hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay," Obama said today during a news conference announcing an aid program for small businesses. "How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?"
