AIG Bonuses vs. Taxpayer Money

A lot of hullabaloo over the AIG bonuses, and finger pointing going on in congress, as well as the media getting the populous all riled up and ready to get he pitchforks and torches, and going after these high paid CEO miscreants. As distasteful as the media makes it sound, the facts are that these bonuses are binding contracts that were negotiated long before the financial house of cards collapsed. Binding contracts are what they are(binding). If the Congress of the United States somehow manages to breach a binding contract, is a that a harbinger of things to come? If this happens, who will feel comfortable entering into a "binding contract" when in the back of their minds they know that the federal government may come along and void the contract.

Lets put things in perspective at least in my perspective. AIG was given approximately $106 B to shore up its obligations, and here is how our taxpayer dollars were distributed (by AIG); Goldman Sachs-$13B, Merrill Lynch-$7B, Bank of America-$5B, other American Banks- $19B. Then we head over seas: United Kingdom-$13B, Germany-$17B, France-$19B, Swiss-$5B, Other small foreign countries $8B. That is a lot of taxpayer money leaving the country. However, you never hear, nor see the mainstream media talk about the $62B of taxpayers money going over seas. What you do hear about is those evil CEOs walking away with $165M of taxpayer bailout money. Whether they performed well or not is irrelevant, it is a binding contract. Focusing more on these bonuses versus the $106B AIG total package, the CEO Bonuses paid by binding contract are only .00155% of that total.

It is blatantly obvious that the administration is playing a shell game with the American people trying to get you to keep your eyes on the $165M bonuses, distracting your attention from the $62B given to foreign banks, Absolutely shameful. Now Barney Frank and the gang that can't shoot straight want to abrogate these contracts. Absolutely shameful, as well as pathetic.