More AIG

There's some interesting demonization of AIG employees going on, in large part due to the scandal surrounding the retention bonuses. This strikes me as mob violence of the basest kind- especially since the angry people often don't take the time to discern if the people in question even worked in the divisions at fault (which many of them didn't and don't). FTA:

"I didn’t have anything to do with those credit problems,” said Mr. Haas, 47. “I told Mr. Liddy” — Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G., the insurance giant — “I would rescind my retention contract.”

Here's another interesting tidbit:

The New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, said on Thursday that A.I.G. had handed over a list with the names of the bonus recipients. But he did not release the list. “We are aware of the security concerns of A.I.G. employees,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement, “and we will be sensitive to those issues by doing a risk assessment before releasing any individual’s name.

Why are you even CONSIDERING releasing these peoples' names? Why would you willingly put these people in harm's way? This, by the way, would be exactly what he's doing- FTA again:

But several security companies in New York credited the financial crisis with a noticeable increase in some areas of their business, from protecting executives to dispatching bomb-sniffing dogs to check for trouble. “There is certainly anger among people about the economy and fear among corporate executives themselves,” said Patrick Timlin, the president of Michael Stapleton Associates, which provides bomb-dog teams.

and also:

Mr. Haas walked on, his pink shirt a burst of color on a slate-gray afternoon. The words came haltingly. "You have to understand,” he said, “there are kids involved, there have been death threats. ..."

Lord.

Reactions to this are really interesting to watch. Paul Krugman's article is really interesting (I don't necessarily agree with it, but from a policy standpoint it sure does make sense). And the fact that Valleywag posted something about the whole debacle really says something about the scope of the reaction.

Oh, and just another little tidbit- now that executives have no incentive at all to stay (and considerable impetus to leave), AIG might be even MORE screwed- nationalization anybody?