(I stole the title of this blog from a newspaper writer on CNBC who was being interviewed).
And frankly I agree. What AIG did was obviously poor business practices, but don't attack AIG or their employees. The House of Representatives totally overreacted this week to the bonuses at AIG. The tax legislation they passed will never make it into law, and the Congressmen are not governing, they are reacting to populism.
First of all bravo to Wall Street for continuing to be smarter than the politicians running Washington. We all knew that Wall Street would find a way to take taxpayer money, hell, the government is just handing it out anyway, so loopholes in the rushed legislation will continue to be exploited. Anytime there's a government project with government money, there's corruption, waste, and fraud.
Second, the government doesn't have enough on it's plate already that now they're going to handle more with AIG, and banks? Please. Washington was such a mess already, that there's no way they're going to be able to successfully manage these large private worldwide congolmerates. The bailouts need to end and the process of selling off and denationalizing these companies needs to begin now.
Third, the government needs private business. If the sands keeps shifting and there's an increased possibility of Congress constantly changing the rules and legislating pay and compensation, no private money will flow back into the financial system to clean up the toxic mortgage assests. And politicians are not good businessmen. That's why you don't see CEOs running for office.
Everyone needs to calm down and look a bit further down field and keep their eye on the ball (to borrow about 3 sports metaphors). We're still not out of this mess and AIG is just a distraction. Populism is turning into another word for stupidity.
Joe Nocera has a great article in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/business/21nocera.html?em
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