It’s an outrage — handing someone millions of dollars when his employer is nearly bankrupt? It’s ridiculous — larding paychecks with taxpayer dollars? It’s unacceptable — paying out a giant bonus in the face of a huge recession?

It’s just business. Even though Barney Frank expressed outrage over AIG’s recent bonuses, people are (deliberately?) forgetting that AIG is a massive company, with over 100,000 employees in 130 countries. And the team responsible for most of the offices was a remarkably tiny group of remarkably arrogant traders.

If AIG’s structured products team is collecting these bonuses, it is, indeed, an outrage. But it’s much more likely that the bonus recipients aren’t the same team at all. AIG has a … Read more...

A single letter to the editor in a small Texas town has made it around the country in just a few weeks. Ed Barnett, a typical taxpayer, penned this justified rant to his hometown Wichita Times Record News (I am assuming their archrival is the Wichita Daily Weekly Recorder Courier Journal Democrat-Republican):

Dear IRS,

I am sorry to inform you that I will not be able to pay taxes owed April 15, but all is not lost.

I have paid these taxes: accounts receivable tax, building permit tax, CDL tax, cigarette tax, corporate income tax, dog licence tax, federal income tax, unemployment tax, gasoline tax, hunting licence tax, fishing licence tax, waterfowl stamp tax, inheritance tax, inventory tax, liquor