This AIG bonus story interests me. It's pretty enraging that people who helped cause this whole financial collapse are going to get taxpayer funded bonuses for their ineptness, but what is more interesting to me is that these people don't have the sense to save themselves. No doubt they feel entitled to these bonuses, and they're angry that anyone would suggest that they shouldn't have them. But what I find most interesting is that they don't seem to realize that stories like this just put Americans in an even more anti-business mood. It certainly does that to me. I mean, seriously, could there be a better backdrop for the Employee Free Choice Act? Just show a couple of pictures of Citibank, talk about needing to curb the power of businesses and get more money to the middle class, and I think that should be good enough.
And it looks like the leaderless Republicans are still playing the part of outraged defenders of the overclass. I won't lie to you, this stuff makes me really angry. The Rovian "let's help our friends and screw our enemies" mindset still plagues the GOP, rather than the "let's do the right thing and consider the politics afterwards" alternative. It's not clear to me what the right thing is all the time, but for these assholes to screw things up so much that they need to take our money to bail them out should be humbling--they should be on their knees every day, making YouTube podcasts thanking us for saving them, and promising voluntary pay cuts until everything is resolved. Their attitude instead seems to be, "Well, you liked it when we were making money for you all with your 401k, so why are you complaining when you have to bail us out? Them's the rules, broseph!" Before this is over, we should regulate the financial sector so harshly that Canadian banking laws look like a joke in comparison.
