by T. GISKI

Created on: March 20, 2009

YES, the bonuses should be paid back to the company, who should inturn reinvest the money into areas that will help improve the lives of all taxpayers. Especially, since these bonuses are being paid to what AIG is calling their best and brightest, in order to keep the talent that the company has acquired. If you call being able to deceive the public and to obscure the truth "talent", then maybe they need to be looking for new help, anyways.

I believe that for the sake of their own happiness, the bonuses given to AIG workers should be given back to the company. To understand why it is in the AIG-employee's best interest to give the money back, let me explain further in several points:

1. First, what would the bonus actually provide for these people that they cannot already afford? My guess is, that they have the basic necessities for survival at their disposal. The truth is, it is not the "every-man" receiving these inflated bonuses. Secretaries are not getting a lump-sum. The mailroom worker is not getting a bonus for his or her good performance. No. The bonuses are paid to their top-producers who already have sufficient means to live. Will the money aid their happiness? Maybe superficially, but once the money is spent, what will they need to purchase to fill a void in their life next? Will the bonus need to be bigger? Will the bailout need to continue in order to foster more bonuses? Where would the cycle end?

2. If these bonus-receivers have any sort of empathy for other people in their community, their state, their nation, their world, I don't believe that the money could possibly make them happy. In fact, the opposite. To illustrate this, it can be compared to a parent eating a meal at the expense of their child starving. More than likely, the parent would sacrifice his or her own "meal" to support the child's sustenance. Will the parent go hungry? Maybe. But the thought of the child starving brings more pain to the parent than the physical hunger he or she would temporarily encounter. So, too, with the bonus money: Although the employee may have counted on the money to buy a new gadget, or a bigger home, or to take a vacation but the "prize" would be fleeting in comparison to the feeling of fulfillment they would receive by giving the money back, knowing they did what most would consider the correct thing. These people fed off the vision of capitalism to the point of greed. And, while Capitalism is good, the extreme approach (greed, or amassing wealth just

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