Everyday the headlines are filled with news of public and political outrage at AIG, their shady business practices, the various scandals in which their executives seem to be involved.  The latest of these scandals is, of course, the $165 million in bonuses that AIG paid out using taxpayer money through the government bailout.  Don’t get us wrong, here at Wallet Blog, we too are appalled that AIG turned around and used taxpayer money to essentially pay out staff who helped run their company, and as a result, the American economy, into the ground.

However, we need to keep in mind that 165 million dollars, while a lot of money, is more than 1000 times smaller than the amount of money that the government has given AIG in bailouts thus far…and that’s just AIG.  Why is the American financial news community concentrating on 165 million of mismanaged funds, when there’s the subject of 180+ billion dollars that have been handed over to AIG as a direct result of the CDS SCANDAL, which Congress and President Clinton passed into law, in December of 2000, after being illegal for 91 years?

If they’re so appalled, why haven’t we had a single resignation from a member of Congress that voted for the CDS Scandal in 2000? If politicians want to call for suicides from AIG execs because of this mismanagement, shouldn’t they start by taking responsibility themselves?  The outrage of our politicians is total hypocrisy because they are the ones that created a scandal 1000 times larger than what the AIG execs did.  The news ought to keep this in perspective and hold all the politicians that voted for the CDS scandal accountable.  The size of the AIG bonus scandal is $165 million. The size of Congress’s CDS scandal is, so far, $180+ billion, just for AIG alone.