AIG's intention of paying $165 million in bonuses to executives--including those who ran the AIG Financial Products, the unit of the company that underwrote credit default swaps--isn't going over well. The payments were payable to executives by Sunday and were part of a larger planned payout valued at $450 million, reports the AP. You can't blame President Obama for voicing outrage. He's not buying the idea that AIG is contractually bound and needs to retain the same executives that put the company in the condition it's in now.

Rhetorically, CEO Edward Liddy doesn't have much of a platform on which to rest his case. After all, this is a taxpayer-rescued company--to the tune of more than $170 billion--and one that happens to be 80 percent owned by the government. There's a good deal of public anger out there. You can't blame AIG for beefing up security. This is turning into something of a high-noon showdown. The New York AG is now involved, and he's issuing subpoenas for information on the millions of dollars in bonuses American International Group gave employees after AIG missed his deadline for providing information. 

For more:
- here's an AP overview

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