I don't know about you, but hearing yesterday that AIG planned to pay out $165m in bonuses to its employees, basically our tax dollars, really angered me to the point of distraction. It's not often that a news story on the national cycle has the capacity to make me want to punch something. But I spent much of yesterday discussing the news with others who, like me, just couldn't stomach this bullshit any longer.

To get it straight: Company essentially steals investors' money, bankrupts old ladies' pensions, ruins financial future for the majority of hard working Americans. Company goes to taxpayers for handout when situation becomes untenable. Company uses taxpayer handouts to make chief architects of scam richer.

AGHHH!

So it's reassuring that Barack Obama feels as I do. As we do.

Harnessing public outrage over lavish bonuses for bailed-out executives at insurance giant AIG, President Obama said Monday that he will “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

Obama made his forceful remarks at a small-business event at the White House, following a weekend of heavy news coverage of the payments that fueled the populist backlash already building against bailouts for the wealthy.

“This isn’t just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s about our fundamental values,” Obama said.
“All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every single day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multi-million dollar bonuses,” Obama said. “And all they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules.”

More at Politico, including video. And Mr.President, please: Fuck those fuckers, all the way to hell.