I Think Your'e Wrong

In the grand scheme of things $165 million really isn't all that much when compared to the $170 billion of tax payer money AIG received. But that's not the point. The point is why should private citizens be rewarded with multimillion dollar bonuses completely paid by tax payers for running their company into the ground. They shouldn't. If AIG wants to dole out bonuses they should have a bake sale or not give bonuses at all.

So I do believe David Axelrod to be entirely wrong when he says people aren't thinking about the AIG bonuses. They are thinking about them. In addition to thinking about their own jobs, people are thinking about how big of a scam it is to award millions of dollars in bonuses to people who did a terribly lousy job of running a very unsuccessful business. People can do and think more than one thing at once, David. This is really not the direction the Obama administration wants to take this debate.

On another note, I've met Axelrod many times. Both of us share the great honor of working for Sen. Paul Simon. David's usually just about spot on with his analysis. He's usually rather soft spoken and genuinely cares about issues affecting people's lives. But you're wrong on this one. Sen. Simon would not approve.

*Update:

Josh Marshall nails it on the head.

What is so damaging about this isn't the money -- which is almost trivially small compared to the many hundreds of billions we've already committed. The problem is what appears to be the president's mortifying impotence in the face of bankers and financiers who created the problem. The president speaks and acts for the federal government, which is to say, the American people, who have mobilized more than a trillion dollars and all powers of the state to repair the damage emerging out of the financial sector. And with all that, he's jacked up on a employment agreement between a company the government now owns and derivatives traders who sank the world economy and may quite likely be looking at criminal charges for their activities in the not too distant future?

I totally agree. We own AIG and it's not as if contractual agreements about bonuses is too large for the President of the United States to undo. If it is, then we are in a sad, sad situation.