Here's the outrage.

When I first heard about the AIG bonuses - I think it was last Saturday - I felt sure there'd be hell to pay, but this is way beyond what I expected. Now that we've all been treated to six straight days of red-faced rage, I have to say - this is just fucking surreal. It's not surprising that people are pissed off, but to see politicians, pundits, and news correspondents gnashing their teeth and shaking their fists at the sky is kind of hilarious. What - they've never heard of out-sized executive compensation before? Of top-level managers walking away from failed enterprises with a big bundle of cash? Where have they been for the past 25 years? It's only been happening my entire adult life, practically. Oh sure, I know - AIG took public funds. But plenty of companies with obscenely over-compensated management teams suck off the public feeding tube. Just look at our defense contractors, for chrissake, or Agri-business, fed fat with subsidy. AIG is a dramatic example of something that's been common practice for a long time, made possible by the very people who are screaming the loudest.

It's a pretty hollow pantomime, I'm sure, for most people. We've all been watching this feeding frenzy for decades now as our own incomes have stagnated or declined. These hubris-driven bonuses are just a parting shot - a little flourish on the longest and most profound looting of our nation's treasure in its 233-year history. Since the start of the 1980s, business has called the shots and the wealthy have further enriched themselves at the expense of working people and the poor. What was good for Wall Street was good for the country, and it didn't matter how convoluted and abstruse their methods became - if they moved the needle in the right direction, it was all good. We've just been subjected to a systematic fraud that's measurable in the tens of trillions of dollars, and far from excoriating the beneficiaries, our political leadership and mainstream press have largely facilitated and celebrated their excess.

Sure, AIG cut themselves checks. But they also passed something like $13 billion to Goldman Sachs to cover outstanding contracts. I heard a G.S. spokesperson say that they would not have been substantially affected by the loss of AIG, but that they took the payout to protect the interests - get this - of the American people, who had bailed Goldman out and were, therefore, shareholders of the extremely well-connected investment bank. (Insert laugh track here.) When you view this in the broader context not only of massive bonuses (more than a billion to executives of bailed-out Citibank) and ongoing payouts via the Federal Reserve, but of the stuff that doesn't get talked about at all, like the missing $50 billion or more in Iraq reconstruction funds (remember the pallets of cash?) and the other assorted wild commitments of public funds initiated by the previous administration, AIG is small potatoes. It also provides a good opportunity for the thieves to yell "thief", if only for a few days.

We've got a massive problem here, folks - one that's causing upwards of 650,000 people to lose their jobs every month. We didn't get here overnight. If we're unprepared, it's because the sluggards who run this country - Republicans and Democrats - have been asleep at the switch for too long. Wake up time.

luv u,

jp