Seriously?

WASHINGTON — The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

Are they kidding me?

A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday.

Arbitrary?
Arbitrary?

I don't think that word means what Mr. Liddy thinks it means. I can't imagine anyone, well, at least anyone not on Wall St., who could imagine that there is no legitimate pretext for blocking these payments. It's not like Geithner is in a bad mood, and just 'felt like' blocking their compensation.

No, it's more like he felt that, since Treasury funds were the only thing keeping the company in existence at all, and that these payments were to the very people who had driven the company into the state where it required those government funds in the first place, that they might not be entitled to them.

Mr. Liddy, I'm pretty sure even your beloved 'best and brightest' could figure out the message of blocking these bonuses - if, by your actions on the job, you burn down the entire global finance system, you won't be rewarded for it. Personally, I think we ought to send that message.

And now that you mention it, what the hell is with this "best and the brightest" cliche? Wasn't the most famous recent use of the phrase from the book about the Kennedy-era brains who got us into Vietnam, (previous record-holder for stupidest, most expensive and pointless American military misadventure before Iraq?)

Now AIG's 'best and brightest' have turned the entire world's economy into a house of cards.

Mr. Liddy, I'm thinking we probably DON'T want to attract any more 'best and brightest' people. Maybe 'adequate and mostly-on-the-ball' is what we are looking for. The 'best and brightest' have a nasty habit of getting to caught up in their own brilliance and hubris. If blocking their bonuses causes them to leave AIG, so that only the stolid and competent are left behind, wouldn't that actually be a good thing?

(Oh, and Mr. Liddy, where would they go? Do you really think having AIG's London office on your resume looks good right now? How about this as a retention plan - if they stay at their job, we don't put them in a cell next to Bernie Madoff. Yet.)

Liddy also claims to be worried that, if they aren't paid their bonuses, these scoundrels in the London office would sue. My response to that is, so what? Let them.

I know lawyers are expensive, but in these deflationary times, I'm guessing you could get some pretty good contract law representation for the price of just one of these bonuses. And I bet the contract language has some language about company performance, or some kind of moral turpitude clause, that even an eager law student could use to defend the company from such a suit.

Heck, I'm betting we could even find some lawyers willing to defend AIG pro-bono, if those London scumbags were to sue to try to get a dime. Or DOJ interns, since they'd have to use bailout dollars to pay. Even if the contracts were written by some 'best and brightest' AIG lawyer and didn't have the boilerplate language I've seen in every employment contract I've ever signed, I'm sure AIG could avoid paying for quite a while. Even if a court eventually agreed they must be paid, it could be made painful for the people who have caused the rest of us so much difficulty.

If Mr. Liddy actually wanted to.

Therefore, one can only conclude that, actually, Mr.Liddy wants to pay these guys. There is no way he actually needs to. Mr. Liddy isn't a victim of unfortunate circumstances over which he has no control; he is a criminal co-conspirator, and that's our money he's doling out to those scoundrels.

It's about time to get out the pitchforks and torches.