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Denver Post
'Direct Public Outrage at D.C., Not Just at AIG'
March 19, 2009
"There is plenty of blame to go around. The original bailouts to AIG began last year under the Bush administration. Congress should have ensured then that they approved of salary and bonus provisions extended to financial institutions benefiting from taxpayer aid - especially ones like AIG, in which the government now owns an 80 percent stake."
Read the full editorial from the Denver Post
Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
'Bailouts and Bonuses'
March 19, 2009
"The government says it could seek repayment of the bonuses as a condition of a new round of federal money coming AIG's way. So, taxpayers will be repaying taxpayers?
"These bailouts are largely necessary if credit and confidence are to be restored. But these recipient companies need to realize that they can't repay the help with arrogance and then wonder why the public just won't understand about the necessity. And the federal government needs to understand that fiscal responsibility requires those strings attached."
Read the full editorial
from the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Philadelphia Inquirer
'AIG Bonuses Only Part of the Mess'
March 19, 2009
"Of all the reasons for taxpayers to be outraged about AIG, executive bonuses are only a part of it.
The federal government deserves blame, too, for shoveling money with few conditions at the "too-big-to-fail" insurance firm since last fall."
Read the full editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
'AIG Bonuses a Reflection of Larger Problem That Irks Americans'
March 18, 2009
"Since 1980, compensation of CEOs of large companies has risen at far higher rates than for average workers. The real, inflation-adjusted income of the wealthiest Americans has jumped substantially over the past two decades, but many middle-class and lower-income workers have experienced no more than modest gains.
"In America, outrage is all the rage."
Read the full editorial from the Forth Worth Star-Telegram
Chicago Tribune
'AIG Fever'
March 18, 2009
"Reviving AIG is a monumental task. That's what Americans need Liddy to focus on. They don't need pols who are shocked-shocked!-by bonus payments that they all knew, or should have known, were scheduled. They don't need politicians like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) saying that AIG executives should apologize ... and then go kill themselves.
Read the full editorial in the Chicago Tribune
The Detroit News
'AIG Bonuses Should Outrage Detroiters'
March 17, 2009
"As outrage explodes over American International Group Inc.'s plan to lavish $165 million in bonuses on the unit most responsible for its collapse into federal ownership, the insurer's brass is claiming the inviolability of employment contracts to justify big-ticket payouts to those whose risk-taking helped bring the global financial system to its knees.
"Contracts? Sacred? Unbreakable? Tell that to autoworkers whose union cut a deal with Detroit's automakers only to see the Bush administration, Team Obama and ranting members of Congress from both parties demand those contracts be torn up in exchange for a $17.4 billion federal lifeline."
Read the full column from The Detroit News
Los Angeles Times
'AIG and the Cost of the Bonuses'
March 17, 2009
"There are at least two lessons in this episode for policymakers. First, when Washington saves a company from bankruptcy, it interrupts the painful but necessary process of restructuring a failing firm. Had Washington allowed AIG to slide into bankruptcy in September, a federal judge would have been empowered to cancel the bonuses regardless of contracts.
"We're not prepared to argue that the feds should have let AIG fail, but we're still waiting for the administration to clarify the circumstances under which a firm poses so much risk to the financial system that it cannot be allowed to fail."
Read the full editorial from the Los Angeles Times
Cleveland Plain Dealer
'AIG's Taxpayer-aided Rewards for Execs Are Maddening'
March 17, 2009
"There's a grotesque corollary at work in the public's ongoing bailout of insurance giant AIG. The more taxpayer dollars entrusted, the more the company spends on questionable payouts -- and the more conspicuously absent are Treasury officials who should be safeguarding the public trust."
Read the full editorial from the Cleveland Plain Dealer
St. Petersburg Times
'Bonus? They Don't Deserve a Job'
March 17, 2009
"To average people who are worried about keeping their low-paying jobs and overpriced homes, the bonuses smack of overweening executive privilege. Just like the banks that received government bailout money but kept their corporate jets and lavish expense accounts, AIG's bonuses should be filed under 'they just don't get it.'"
Read the full editorial from the St. Petersburg Times
Boston Globe
'Grabby at AIG'
March 16, 2009
"Despite the complexity of the federal bailouts of the financial industry, the basic question is simple: how to allocate a huge amount of financial pain. During the real estate bubble, financial firms bet big on ill-advised mortgages. When those assets went sour, taxpayers committed vast amounts of money to save the industry.
"And yet bailed-out firms seem to think they should be made whole no matter what."
Read the full editorial from The Boston Globe
San Francisco Chronicle
'The Audacity of American Bankers'
March 15, 2009
"It's bad enough that the American banking industry is getting trillions of dollars in taxpayer relief for its colossal misjudgments. Even as it stays afloat on government largesse, the industry is pressing the U.S. Supreme Court to scuttle a landmark California law that allows consumers to control the use of their personal financial information."
Read the full column from the San Francisco Chronicle
---- Compiled from media reports
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