AIG Bonuses: Mande Says No Big Deal

The lesson from the AIG bonus kerfuffle is that Americans are criminally naive.

What we have here is a national freak-out over absolutely nothing.

The few who can stand to admit that would have you believe that the ire is misdirected, the anger over the bailout’s existence having been newly assigned to its misuse.

That’s in itself a glowingly naive assessment.

No, people are not upset about the bailout – not anymore, if ever they even were. It’s not the wasted trillions that have upset Americans, because most everyone believes – naively – in the power of action. As long as things are “being done,” the assumption is that it’s all under control, or it’s on its way to being under control.

Americans can accept, apparently, soft-core socialism. They can accept it because they can expect it.

They’ve become immune to it, inured by decades spent hand-in-hand with the government. It’s acceptable because it’s expected.

What Americans cannot accept – nor expect – is that sometimes the government wants to do more than hold hands. In this way, the whole thing’s got a certain Sic Willie vibe – attached strings and all.

That anyone is surprised by the “bailout-turned-bonuses” shows just how astoundingly out of touch people are.

Do people still actually believe in government valor? Did Americans truly expect that the bailout expenditures were completely kosher? Is it so surprising that some undeserving paws have profited from taxpayer charity?

Like 73 undeserving paws that got bonuses of $1 million or higher?

The bonuses are no big deal not because they’re relatively picayune – that’s a mendacious angle. Size – of debt, of government, of whatever – hasn’t mattered in Washington in quite a while, and anyway it’s the principle that aggravates.

Americans understand ratios. They understand that $165 million in bonuses is not unlike a $2 homeless handout.

What Americans don’t understand is that government brimming money and brimming itself is a bad combination . . . one that sometimes leads to fraud, injustice, and treachery.

Only naked naivete has allowed Americans to be shocked by this fact of life.

It’s a luxury, actually, to be surprised by the bailout bonuses. Those of us not under the government’s spell are sort of jealous: Fiction is fun, and so is denial.

Everyone’s surprise has been my surprise . . . I couldn’t have expected such naivete, and I can’t accept it – not without a bursting stab at the bubble of gullibility.

Oh, and as the Sic one has pointed out several times in recent days, the absolute last people who should be surprised/ outraged by the bonus scandal are the Washington insiders who voted to dump hundreds of billions of dollars into these firms without a shred of accountability.

Again, what did you expect?

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