AIG’s clearly excessive bonuses have, I’m afraid, thrown into stark relief the cluelessness of the Obama administration’s economic endeavors. I say this as an Obama supporter and with the understanding that the bailout process began under the previous, totally incompetent administration.
Two wrongs rarely make a right, however, and shoveling even more money onto the economic bonfire continues to be a terrible “solution” (so quoted since it’s unclear what it actually solves) as well as extraordinarily politically unpopular.
In the AIG case one wonders who is in charge. If it is true as claimed that President Obama only became aware of the situation last Thursday, we can hardly hold him fully accountable. Yet this affair may prove the end of the honeymoon. There are way too many folks in really tough times for it to be remotely palatable to give million dollar bonuses to the Wall Street dopes who crested this mess.
Personally, I think a plan for a 100% tax on these bonuses might be a solution to mollify the public for the time being. Beyond that we need to get to the point where we stop throwing taxpayer dollars at every failing company or industry. There are too many.