No Longer Avoiding the Obvious

I feel like I've somehow been ducking the financial situation, and AIG in particular, by not addressing it on the blog, but in truth, I feel like I've got nothing to add to the conversation. Sure, I'm angry at AIG (and whoever else) for taking taxpayer money and turning it back as obscene bonuses for people who don't deserve it, but all I've really got to offer is just more venting.

I think that the Obama administration is sort of in the same place. They can't quite get their act together on how to address this. The House jumped in, though, with a legally questionable bill to tax the bonuses back to the Treasury. Ezra Klein wonders if the AIG mess has ushered in a new era in which the public not only demands accountability from financial institutions but wants retribution, as well. It certainly could, and that's what the House seems to be responding to. But I also feel to some extent that the AIG bonuses are a distraction from bigger problems. It's a lot of money, to be sure, but we've got a much bigger issue of the entire financial system. We can't let this annoying development throw us off from where our attention really needs to be.