Correct me if I'm wrong

But haven't there been lots of other cases where the government has issued bail-out funds to financial entities who also gave bonuses to some of their High-and-Mighty's?  I haven't been following all the ins-and-outs, I'll admit, but hasn't this come out before, in regard to banks, for example?  So, granted that AIG's bonuses are egregious, why are they so much worse than what some of the banks have already done?

Comments

[Hypatia]

The real news here would seem to be the billions handed out to the AIG counterparties. But there is such a thing as a tipping point. Every once in awhile there are stories that crystallize what’s wrong in a simple way that everyone can understand, and this is one of them. I guess you can argue that, well, we’ve doled out lots of good money after bad before, so what’s the big deal here? But do you really want to do that?

[John Petty]

The Obama administration is trying too hard not to do the obvious, which is nationalize failing banks, restructure, and then sell. The reason they don't want to go there is because then the Republicans will yell "socialism." They're going to do it anyway.