I feel bad for Edward Liddy (head of AIG). He came out of retirement and is working for one dollar to try to fix AIG. He had to go before the blowhards of Congress and explain the bonuses, which weren't really bonuses. They were for retention for the people to come back next year.
All the people that got this money weren't the people who drove AIG down, these people came in are working to fix AIG.
Congress, kept on hammering Liddy about why the bonuses (I'll call them bonuses here) were handed out. Liddy kept on saying that the contract were written up before he got there and he had to honor them. Congress didn't undersand that and kept on asking him over and over the same question and Liddy kept on giving them the same answer.
I won't even get into the fact that the goverment knew about the bonuses. That's a whole different ballgame.
I would have liked to see Liddy go off on them. He could have said, "I'm working for one dollar to fix this company. If you so holy, why don't you work for a dollar and give the people in your district your money. I'm sure they could use it."
Now people are saying that the AIG employees that took the money are greedy. I don't see it like that. I see it as a deal. You work here for a year and you get this much money. Both sides agreed on it. Being greedy is if the company said and you agree on 2 million at the end of the year, and it's in writing, then at the end of the year you say I want 4 million. That's being greedy.