Greetings. I can't be the only person feeling increasingly disturbed by Congress' reaction to the obnoxious AIG bonuses controversy.

I believe we all pretty much agree that the bonuses were utterly inappropriate to be contracted when they were ... but the fact is that they were contracted, and work was done on the basis of those contracts (much of which is now completed, and the relevant persons departed as planned). We now know it was the Obama Treasury Department that requested the language honoring those bonuses (despite righteous indignation we're hearing now from the administration about the bonuses -- after the story blew up).

It's particularly chilling to hear Congress talking about special targeted 90% or 95% taxes to try suck back the bonuses from individuals at this stage of the game (the House is about to pass something along these lines as I type this). Certainly it is completely appropriate to recover the funds from AIG, but retroactively going after the individuals who worked under legal contract terms -- in expectation of being paid under those terms -- seems to me to set a terrible precedent.

UPDATE: A reader reminded me that if Congress is looking for a role model for this sort of retroactive contract annulment, it need look no farther than Darth Vader's opinion regarding deals.

Also very disturbing -- some Congressmen have called for publication of AIG employees' personal information, even in the face of death threats against those employees and their families. Emotions are running wild over logic.

I'm a big supporter of Obama, but the AIG situation seems to me to have become overly personalized, and now members of Congress are trying to out posture each other with "get tough" reactions, some of which seem to be very poorly thought out (surprise! surprise!) and could do even more damage.

Am I alone in thinking that the situation is becoming chaotic, with many of the negative ramifications associated with such chaos?

--Lauren--