As the furor continues over millions of dollars in employee bonuses at the failed insurance giant AIG, lawmakers and administration officials in Washington are weighing their options to either block the payments or penalize the company.

President Barack Obama said Monday that he intends to stop American International Group from paying out millions in executive bonuses, as concern intensified over the insurance giant's handling of federal rescue money.

Question: Why does AIG need yet another bailout? Paul Solman: As Joe Nocera and Frank Partnoy explained on Monday’s show, it’s all about the “counterparties.” These are the large financial institutions with whom…

Question/Comment: If the banks are nationalized and become healthy again, what is the process for reprivatization? Do stockholders on record as of the date of nationalization have any priorities when the banks are reprivatized? How did Sweden manage this process?…

Question/Comment: Will the next generation be better off? Paul Solman: Who knows? But an interesting skeptic is Dallas Salisbury, head of the Employee Benefits Research Institute. I interviewed him recently for a story on what’s known as “the…

Editor’s Note: On Friday’s NewsHour, we aired another in our series of reports on making sense of the recession. The segment is about the “upside of the downturn,” which looks at the silver lining of the economic slump. Paul Solman:…