AIG

There are undoubtedly all sorts of legal and technical reasons why this AIG bonus situation is the way it is.

But there's also a political reality at work here, and if the government is going to retain the ability to act it's going to have to find a way to rein this crap in. Pitchforks and torches don't make good public policy but pushing the peasants' noses into the manure pile is a good way to provoke them.

As many have pointed out, blue collar workers' contracts have been far from sacrosanct in this crisis, I see no reason why white collar workers' contracts should be -- especially when the white collar workers in question (at AIG) played a direct role in causing the crisis, something that can't be said about folks like the autoworkers.