One Set Of Rules For CEOs, Another For Everyone Else

Here's a great article (Salon) by author, blogger, columnist and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald on the double standard of giving bonuses to AIG CEOs while demanding concessions from union workers. To recap: AIG paid out $165 million in executive bonues to its economy-destroying executives that it would not have been able to pay out had the United States government not bailed their bankrupt asses out with the rapidly dimishing wealth of its citizens, who must wonder how their taxes get blown on this kind of shit. AIG's excuse? "we have to pay them, it's in their contracts, it's the law, wah wah wah." (New York Times)

Greenwald points out unionized autoworkers had legal contracts too, but the U.S. goverment demanded those get changed as a condition of the bailout. He also points out that the United States has once again been implicated in torture (as recently as today, in fact), which oh by the way is against international law. (Washington Post)

As Greenwald so elegently puts it:

"Apparently, this "we are a country of law" concept means that hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money must be transferred to the AIG executives who virtually destroyed the financial system, but it does not mean that something must be done when high government officials get caught plainly breaking the law. What an oddly selective application of the "rule of law" this is."

Good, anger-making, bullshit-cutting-through stuff. In case you missed it up top, the link's here.