Sound and fury over AIG

"Anger grows over bonuses for AIG staff in America, but little can be done about themTHE revelation that $165m in bonuses have been paid by AIG, a giant insurance company bailed out with roughly $170 billion of taxpayers' money after it came close to collapse last year, has turned into a political drama for Barack Obama. The latest payments are in addition to $55m paid out in bonuses in December. It is one that may constrain his ability to obtain future funds from Congress should money be needed for more bail-outs. Mr Obama has been forced into the embarrassing position of instructing his treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, to see if there are any legal ways to claw back the money. Since it seems unlikely that there is (contracts being contracts), this protest will merely serve to highlight his impotence. Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister, knows all about that; a similar eruption of fury followed news that the man who presided over the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin, was walking away with a pension worth over GBP700,000 ($986,000) a year. Mr Brown and various of his ministers threatened all sorts of retribution, but there has been none. They even had to resort to hoping that Sir Fred would feel honour-bound to return the money. He has not. ..." (2009-3-17)
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