Top AIG recipients from the 2008 campaign:
1) Chris Dodd 2) Barack Obama 3) John McCain
While I can individually tolerate McCain and Obama, Dodd is probably one of the biggest d-bags ever.

The Feds created this problem. The people at AIG may be guilty of poor judgment, but that is all. I don't know whether to laugh or puke when I see Obama, Dodd, and company feign outrage over the bonus situation. They not only knew that AIG execs would receive this money, they in fact guaranteed it. Then they come before the American public acting surprised and angry. What hypocrites.

Mag, is that all you're worried about? You're not worried about all the excessive taxing that will be imposed on all of us to pay for the trillions of dollars that AIG is actually on the hook for? oops... I mean we're on the hook for. (we own them now) Increased governmental control in the name of (fixing the economy) is the larger issue for me, but never mind that... its just partisan paranoia. abichara is dead on, I see words like " mess"... "convoluted"... "populist urgency" "impulsive" But what does this really say? Its says what we've really known all along...That is...every time the government gets their mitts on something...it turns into a disaster. Never mind that though...

AIG is somewhat of a victim of the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and federal social engineering programs to spread "home ownership" among the masses even with those people who couldn't or wouldn't pay or shouldn't get such huge gobs of credit and other largess. The job of AIG was to insure all those bad loans.

That being said, enough evidence exists of malfeasance, misfeasance and non-feasance in AIG to force to the wall most of the top brass for the trusty mob firing squad.

What about the Barack Hussein regime response to the AIG mess? Answer: AIG stands for "incompetence in government."

So today Congress is debating a motion that will tax up to 90% of the AIG executive's bonus payments that were paid out to them. Strangely enough, when Congress voted to bail them out back in December, they had voted, as part of the bill, to give these executives the same bonuses. Chris Dodd put an amendment guaranteeing them payment. A week ago, AIG met with Obama Administration officials and Treasury Secretary Geithner to discuss the payments and they agreed to provide it. A political firestorm began a few days later over this issue, after the amount of bonus payment was revealed. Obama then decides to overturn his earlier decision to pay the bonuses; his allies in Congress are pushing forward with a bill to take the money back via a one time tax on this income, all this after they already approved the bonus payments. Apparently they don't want to refuse them payment outright because the administration is afraid that they'll be sued by those employees for breaking a contract.

It sounds like Obama and his friends are trying to cover their tracks on this decision to pay the bonuses by pushing for a one-time tax on these individuals bonus payments. It definitely reeks of political gamesmanship more than anything else. This is old news, why bring it to light now?

Congress should have put in the original legislation language that would've banned such bonus payments while AIG owed money to the government. Instead, they explicitly allowed it to occur. Now, never mind that it is outright unconstitutional to arbitrarily tax someone, at a certain rate, at whim, and not everyone else. Legislation is supposed to be non-specific, applicable to the whole population. If you're going to tax someone at a certain rate, you have to apply the law for everyone. Here the government is applying a tax rate to specific individuals. This sets a very bad precedent for the government. The power to tax is very critical, and the government is clearly abusing its authority here. This is a bill that's being passed ex post facto (after the fact), a blatant violation of our constitution! You can't retroactively change the law after it's been passed; this is very basic stuff here folks. Never mind that these individuals ran their company into the ground due to a lack of understanding of the markets which they operated in; this is a matter of constitutional principle.

Another question that I have about this tax is the fact that AIG paid out some of their bonuses to citizens of Great Britain who worked for the company's London subsidiary. I don't believe we can tax citizens of foreign countries. I'm not too sure if there's a loophole for that, but I don't believe that one country can tax the citizens of another country.

Now, I don't believe that these individuals should have been paid so much in bonus payments, but Congress's approach is wrong on many different levels. Besides constitutional concerns, there are contractual concerns as well. With executive bonuses, there's a fine line because if the government can arbitrarily negate WRITTEN CONTRACTS, it sets a dangerous precedent from here on out. When contracts can be voided at the government's will, you could get a situation where systemic trust is broken down. If the government can't guarantee a contract, then who can?!?

Most importantly, this demonstrates the perils of government intervention in the private sector and how politics can influence decision-making within a private enterprise. We are now just seeing the beginning implications of these bailouts.

I see that Congress just passed the 90% tax for these executives bonus payments. Given some of the constitutional concerns, I suspect that this could go to the Supreme Court. Even though I and most people find these bonus payments abhorrent, the government cannot arbitrarily tax people in this way. And it can't violate contracts with reckless abandon as well. This shows me that Congress is passing these bailouts without even reading the enabling legislation. How could they not catch something like this? And how could they react in such an arbitrary manner??

4.0 people? really? The company that needed an 85 billion dollar loan from our government just so it didnt collapse and create a financial domino affect that would have crippled the world credit markets? that aig? yeah well im voting 1 but really it should be a zero.  This company didnt understand the Credit Default Swaps it was insuring. They didnt understand thier own business. They deserve to fail - the problem is that they take down everyone else with them because of thier size.  We need more transparency in the CDS market.  The american public is in a serious need of a financial 101 class. ill be here for the next 50 years (hopefully) to teach it to them.