AIG to use bailout cash to pay $165 million in bonuses!!! WTF!

So, those guys at AIG who underwrote trillions of dollars worth of credit default swaps backed by securitized mortgages? The ones the Times says were "at the very heart of A.I.G.'s worldwide conflagration?" They're taking $165 million of our bailout money for bonuses. Because if we don't pay them, these people—described by AIG's government-appointed Chairman Ed Liddy as the "best and brightest talent"—will apparently leave to go ruin some other country's financial system, and we can't have that. Liddy acknowledged that the bonuses were "distasteful and difficult" before saying that he had "grave concern about the long-term consequences" of not paying up. More...

See also:

1. US bankers grant themselves $20bn in bonuses...
2. What happened to the bailout money? Why, it's being used as bonus gifts for the Big Boys!
3. Lehman Bros head took home $300m!!!
4. Huge bonuses paid to City bankers was a factor in the credit crunch...
5. AIG collapse: panic in Singapore...