Just when you think we can move on from the outrageous story about taxpayers bailing out billionaires, comes yet more news of million dollar welfare checks paid to miserable failure CEOs courtesy of barely surviving taxpayers.
Fueling the outrage is the fact that some of the folks funding the lavish lifestyle of AIG CEOs are friends, neighbors and family members who have lost their homes.
The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.
Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.
Rage against the machine: But with the news over the weekend that AIG, 80% of which is now owned by the federal government, is awarding millions in bonuses to executives has most likely turned that anger into a furious boil.
AIG
AIG Faces Growing Wrath Over Payouts
AIG ships billions in bailout abroad
Bracing for a Bailout Backlash
Corporate Welfare Jon Stewart AIG Crooks Class Politics Economic Crisis News
