when do us guys show up with pitchforks?

this story has such a familiar ring: aig, ginormous insurance conglomerate, was not doin' so well. it was gonna fail. and everybody panicked and said "no! aig is too big to fail!" too many connecting threads that would cause an utter collapse of not only our economy, but the world economy.

so we – and by we i mean you and me – loaned aig $170 billion or so dollars so they wouldn't have to declare bankruptcy and we wouldn't have to live in garbage cans. (thanks for chipping in your $85 bil, by the way. i knew you were good for it.)

not long ago, obama's treasury secretary tim geithner, found out that aig was gonna use a portion of the money we lent 'em to pay bonuses to employees (right? i know.) and not to just any employees, but to the guys who were pretty much responsible for the whole mess. secretary tim was none too happy about that, and he said "hey, aig, do not do it."

but this weekend, aig said, "excuse me mr. fancy pants secretary, these people had contracts, you see. and we are bound by these contracts to pay the bonuses, no matter how poorly these scoundrels performed, and no matter who loaned us this unbelievable wad of cash."

and it seems (now, this would be when we go running out to the garage to get the pitchforks and torches) that secretary tim said...

"okay."

so on sunday, aig started paying out the bonuses. and tomorrow, you and i are gonna meet at my house and head down to...where? the white house? 70 pine street in new york city, where aig is? maybe both. and we're gonna storm the...uh...storm the insurance giant. or...storm the white house. storm the banks. storm wall street. (we don't have a bastille in this country, right?)

cause this here ain't right.