The Kabuki Theater of AIG Outrage
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 18th, 2009 4:42 am by HL
The Kabuki Theater of AIG Outrage
All the world’s a stage, wrote Shakespeare, and in the world of Washington, the curtains have opened on the most elaborate farce of the year. Welcome, taxpayers, to the Kabuki Theater of AIG Outrage — where D.C.’s histrionic enablers of taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts compete for Best Performance of Hypocritical Indignation. Over the weekend, cloaked in their finest populist costumes, the Beltway’s hair-sprayed and powdered politicians and White House aides took to the airwaves to inveigh against $165 million in employee retention payments made by the government-backed insurance giant. Those bennies were reportedly part of a larger $450 million round of bonuses. After subpoenaing AIG, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo informed Congress that 73 employees in the very division responsible for the financial meltdown received bonuses of $1 million or more — 11 of whom left the company after getting the cash to retain them.