by Bryce

The most recent fiasco on behalf of politicians is a perfect example why politicians should refrain from attempting to run business operations and stick to regulating them. On top of that, this hysteria is reducing confidence on both ‘Wall Street’ and ‘Main Street.’ While the $165 million bonuses paid by AIG are absurd for a company who should be bankrupt, the fact of the matter is that they are not bankrupt because ‘we’ keep giving them money. Politicians had the chance to include language to restrict bonuses and yet they did not. Contractually, AIG was bound to pay the bonuses  unless it filed for bankruptcy which ‘we’ seem to find non-plausible (to which I agree). I am by no means a lawyer but perhaps there was some justification to break the contracts under ‘unjust enrichment’? I have faith in the American people and if the French at Societe Generale can bow to pressure and drop their stock options then I would expect nothing less of their Americans counterparts. 

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by Matthew Lu.

The employees at AIG do not deserve their bonuses; certainly they are dishonorable, and they definitely deserve to be denounced. But there is much more at stake here than a few hundred employees and several million dollars.

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