After Congress gets over it's hissy fit about bonus money , they might get a brain storm as to how private enterprise works. In my college days , I had a job working for Montgomery Ward as an appliance and stereo entertainment center salesman. What I earned was directly tied to what I sold. Most of my pay was in the form of a bonus. Because I desparately needed the money to pay my college bills, I almost strangled people to get them to buy. I was very successful and went back to school in the fall with some mighty bonus pay in my pocket. The extra bonus was that MW execs asked if I would work weekends for them. I did for a while. That bonus money was crucial to a guy working his own way through college. It was a wonderful INCENTIVE. My story is typical of what goes on with millions of people in industry throughout the country. We need to preserve the bonus system not drag it down making a silly example of guys who were only doing what was EXPECTED of them. What we need to change is not the bonus, but the REASON FOR the bonus. I think Congress made a mistake in forcing people to give up their incentives......... and INCENTIVE is the fuel that drives a capitalist system.
Robert

Activists?? Say it ACORN. They did the most to hurt this country, at least name them! And Obama helped teach them how. George Soros pulls the strings and makes billions while "Bursting the bubble of American supremacy."

Estrich...you ARE aware that those bonuses were provided-for in the stimulus package (as well as contractually-obligated to be paid to the employees before the stimulus was signed)...correct? Funny, not a word about this....or about Congress' faux outrage over the bonus payments...or about how Congress is about to pass an unConstitutional bill of attainder to get the money back. It's great of you to stand up for peoples' right to have their home lives be free of protestors, but that's like saying people shouldn't rob banks or mug old ladies. File it under "well, duh."

Re: robert lipka. You're right...but if I were writing your response, I'd have simply pointed out that it's none of Congress' (or the public's, or Obama's) damn business how companies choose to reward their employees. If the government weren't busy handing out my tax money (and borrowed Chinese money) like Halloween candy, there'd be no basis for anyone being upset with AIG. Instead, thanks to this moronic "stimulus," we taxpayers own 80% of the company.