At last a voice of reason!

If you keep it up Walt you will have and keep my vote.

It's easy and politically convenient to posit simplistic solutions when your party is out of power. The correct Democratic position would be to nationalize and break up the company, not to create economic chaos by carving the "people" out of the decision making process. But Minnick has no affiliation with Democratic principles.

The only problem is they wasted 190 billion to come to this conclusion!!!

It's unamerican!

And is sure beats taxing the bonus to get it back. What an insane and stupid comment by the D Congressman.

Its the American Way.
A business makes financial mistakes and goes bankrupt, and a new one springs up knowing if they make the same mistakes they will follow.

completely with ConservoDem. We should prohibit corporations from growing too large so as to avoid the problem of too big to fail. However, letting AIG go under would be a mistake both short-term re: economic recovery and long-term re: recouping taxpayer investments - we will see a profit from our investment.

I agree with Rep. Minnick. The $170b will never be recovered. We should have steered AIG to bankruptcy last fall, not bailed them out. AIG has so many exotic insurance contracts that it will take months for the courts to sort it all out. The federal government should push AIG into bankruptcy by recalling the loan immediately. The stockholders will be wiped out, but it was their fault for investing in this exotic insurance scheme to begin with. Maybe with an AIG bankruptcy we can begin to unravel the credit swap, equity swap, derivative and other exotic investment messses.

Let them fail, then bring back increased regulation to ensure that these financial giants are not allowed to trade in unregulated instruments that put the entire economy at risk.

The greediest should not be allowed to use our social systems to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense.

is keeping his campaign promises and earns kudos for it. But its a Herbert Hoover move. Hoover let all the banks fail until FDR stomped him in 1932. But by then it was too late, massive foreclosures, no credit, no capital, no market, no economy.

With AIG, what we got here is a failure to communicate. Time to put the taxpayer in the drivers seat.

Good for Mr. Minnick. Someone is finally speaking the truth instead of party line politics.

Long overdue, past time to indict these thieves and let this crooked organization go bankrupt.
Seize their billions in assets to repay the American taxpayer for monies received and make them return what they have left of the bailout!

Sprintaway: Succinctly stated! I agree 100%!

I want to know how the rating agencies turned crap into gold!

I agree with him enough is enough. Walt seems like one of the few that actually has a clue.

The big problem I have with this whole affair is the false outrage, if they have in fact even expressed any, of any of the following individuals:

Christopher Dodd, Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Max Baucus, Mitt Romney, Joe Biden, John Larson, John Sununu, Rudy Guiliani, Paul Kanjorski, Dick Durban, Edwin Perlmutter, Charlie Rangel, John Edwards, Bob Corker, Chris Smith, Richard Neal, Jay Rockefeller, Mike Crapo, and Jack Reed to name just a few.

Why? Because in the 2008 election cycle, over $840,000 was paid to these people, in order of highest to lowest in amounts received, and many other corrupt politicians in the house and senate, and they surely expressed no outrage at the bribes, excuse me campaign contributions they received from AIG. Before you Dems start spewing your hypocricy it should be noted that your party, by 68% to 32%, was the greater recipient of these bribes, excuse me campign contributions. So much for the ole hope and change, it looks more like the same old same old that we got under the Republicans to me. You don't have to believe me just merely go to opensecrets.org, http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000123, and look it up for yourself. Sorry partisans I know facts are an ugly thing.

I guess it easier for your Reps and Senators, who were greedily taking AIGs money, to start class warfare and distract the feeble masses so that they can get away with the same old crap they always had. Bravo puppets, I mean people, way to get played by your parties. Do you really think they give a rats behind about you or your future? Puhlease don't make me laugh. One last question you might also ask of the sorry newspaper is why they haven't dug further into the great american money grab between AIG and Congress? Afraid they might upset their masters in govt? What a pathetic joke, just like the electorate that lets them get away with it.

politicians who think like businessmen, run the country with the same effective business practices and we will do fine. Reward success, punish failure, dont spend more than you earn, repay what you borrow, dont waste resources, invest in america, invest in our future, dont outsource our economy.

A logical argument Walt presents but it's too late. At least now we might be able to recover some of our tax money.

Great position...now add GM and Chrysler to the same position and we will begin to see things correct without our tax dollars. Giving money to these corportations is as good as flushing it down the toilet! The CEO's do not GET IT! Accountability, transparency, ethics, morals, loyalty...they have none of these words in their collective vocabularies!

From AIG, that is a trillion dollar plus rathole. The more government $$$ we throw in the hole, the more we are guaranteed to lose.

Corporations do not hold anyone accountable, that is the beauty of them. You can run the corporation into the ground and walk away with all the bonuses and money that you sucked out of it and have no personal liability. That is the whole purpose of the corporation. That is why you see executives rewarding themselves so much. Look at all of the corporations that have been corrupt over the last decade and the number of people that got rich off of them without any reprocussion. The ones that take the hit are the honest stock holders that are invested thru 401k plans. All the big investors are in the pocket of the CEO. Capitalism is great until it creates monopolies that are too BIG to fail. Then you get stuck with this mess.

Will Barney Frank and Maxine Waters be outraged over the retention bonuses Fannie and Freddie are planning to pay to their execs? Of course not!

I appreciate the fact that Congressman Minnick is offering calm, sensible advice instead of competing for the most outrageous comment award.

Will letting corporations go bankrupt have painful repercussions on the economy? Absolutely! But short-term pain for long term gain is far better than having the Fed print money and perpetuate the cycle of endless recessions.

One of today’s headlines 3/19/09

"House scheduled to vote on 90 percent tax for AIG bonuses"

Now just what kind of cop-out is this garbage?

Why can't they understand? It is simple. Just give it ALL back or go to prison!!!!

obama, you have sold us out just as predicted!!!!!!!!!

The very essence of capitalism is expansion, hence, the capitalist finds his raison d' etre in the insatiable search for additional money-wealth gained through the constant growth of the economic system. The idea of a stationary capitalism is a contradiction of terms and by throwing more corporate welfare at AIG will not help them to pull themselves up by their collective bootstraps. Capitalism, as a philosopy (and indeed an American virtue), is a mirror image of Darwin's theory of evolution in that the laws of the market are like the laws of nature and that those who perpetually adapt survived. The dynamics of AIG have become static, they no longer can expand nor adapt. I agree with Walt Minnick, it is time AIG to become extinct.

Minnick illustrates the problem the country is in and one of the causes -- certain kinds of people are rewarded with money even if they fail miserably. Bankruptcy of a corporation is hardly a solution. The losers end up keeping the money anyway while the shareholders lose their shirts.

In a personally held business (as opposed to a corporation), bankruptcy can be a real motivation to not fail, but in the corporate world, for the management, it is not.

Unfortunately, Minnick comes from this corporate culture.