Dear Everyone,

It has recently become clear that AIG is handing out bonuses to...

What's that? I linked to an article about AIG bonuses from three months ago? My bad. Let's start over.

It has recently become clear that AIG is handing out bonuses to various highly-compensated individuals who happen to be the same people who ran AIG aground in the first place. It has also become clear that many of them, after receiving this money, fled like rats from a sinking ship. Yes, this would be the same sinking ship we're keeping afloat with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars. Yes, this is literally a case of taxing the poor to keep rich people rich. Yes, you have every reason to be outraged.

Now I have something to say about this outrage, but I don't want to be misunderstood. So I am going to put this in the simplest possible terms:

WHAT THE @#$% DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN!?

We gave AIG $170,000,000,000 dollars! Just for being big! Have you ever tried to spend a hundred and seventy billion dollars? Did anyone honestly believe that the people in charge weren't going to use some of that money to keep themselves in caviar and high-dollar prostitutes? This is what happens when you incentivize failure: you get more failure!

I think the AIG bonuses are an ethical nightmare, but most of the money given to AIG didn't have any real, substantive strings attached. As the linked commentator notes, the republicrats made the economic risks public while privatizing the rewards. This was obvious from the beginning. I'm just as mad about it now as I was about it then. What I can't figure out is why everyone who is mad now wasn't also mad then!

This mess is the obvious and predictable result of corporate welfare. If we'd let AIG fail, all these people would be in the poorhouse. Instead, they got their millions and got the heck out. If they're smart, they're sipping margaritas in a country with loose extradition policies. The counterargument--that letting AIG fail would have been worse for the economy--is speculative, but even allowing for speculation (as I myself have engaged in it from time to time!), at least we'd have some karmic balance. Instead, the people who caused this mess get a massive personal chunk-o'-bailout, paid for by people who enjoy a much lower standard of living.

Does that seem right to you?

Well you should have thought about that before voting for the chumps who supported the bailout. We had a chance in November to stop this. So unless you voted third-party four months ago, or at least picked legislators who opposed the bailout, quit your bellyaching. This AIG fiasco is the obvious and predictable result of voting the way you did.

I can't even go on. I'm too disgusted.

Your friend,
Kenny