AIG= Avarice, Insatiability, Greed

We should know by now that AIG is in the business of pricing and managing risk and has been in this business for decades.

And if we didn't know it, we have been told so relentlessly by the media on a 7x24 basis. AIG has spent perhaps billions of dollars on technology over the years to help the company identify and manage risk. It has certainly paid out billions of dollars in total compensation during the past 10 years to the people it has hired to "price and manage risk."

So why does AIG now want to shift the entire question and burden of risk to the American people after wasting the billions it has received from the government since last fall?

Why do AIG executives (who have failed miserably at their jobs of "pricing and managing risk") deserve to spread $165 MM in bonuses among themselves as a parting gift before many of them take off for more lucrative pastures? If the $165 mm represents performance bonuses, well, those executives haven't performed well, have they? They've run the company into the ground and taken part of our economy with them. So they don't deserve the bonus payment for excellent performance.

If this is a "retention bonus," well, their performance indicates that these executives don't deserve to be retained, so they certainly don't deserve the bonuses on those grounds. As far as "retention" is concerned, those AIG executives who took the money and ran should be forced to return the bonus money.

Since the company's financial results have been atrocious, there is nothing but outrage to respond with, regarding these bonuses to failed executives in a failed business unit in a company living on life support provided by your taxes and mine.