More AIG

Brady Dennis at WaPo confirms the reports that the people getting the bonuses were not the cause of the problems, but those who are working to resolve them:

In actuality, he said, nearly all the troublesome sectors of the business -- namely, the risky credit derivatives written on mortgage-backed securities -- are now out of the equation, as are the people who worked on them. That leaves a small number of employees to untangle the remaining trades

Not that our Congresscitters, or even their own new boss care:

Before he waded into the circus on Capitol Hill on Wednesday,(American International Group Chairman Edward M.) Liddy e-mailed a letter to the employees of Financial Products, asking them to "step up and do the right thing." He asked that anyone who received more than $100,000 in retention payments return at least 50 percent.

Thanks, Boss: Don't keep telling people we are working to fix things we didn't break, just tell the country that we are slimeballs who did something wrong.

The handful of souls who championed the firm's now-infamous credit-default swaps are, by nearly every account, long since departed. Those left behind to clean up the mess, the majority of whom never lost a dime for AIG, now feel they have been sold out by their Congress and their president.

Not to mention their own boss.

"My fear is that the damage is done," he told a congressional subcommittee. "That they will return [the money], but that they will return it with their resignations."

There is little doubt within Financial Products that he's right about that.

Why would our Solons care? They have had a chance to polish their soapboxes once again. Consequences for the country be damned. Including:

(E)-mails from the public have continued to roll in, including death threats and calls to blow up the firm's Wilton headquarters. Reporters and photographers have camped out in front of the offices in London and Connecticut. They have staked out employees' houses. The New York Post identified one executive and labeled him "Jackpot Jimmy." Another employee had to relocate his family after a London tabloid printed his address.

Why should politicians care about they harm they do to Others? The Others are just pawns in the noble game of Power.

I suspect Connecticut, thanks to more local Solons, is not among the states with "shall issue" concealed carry permit laws, either.