Why Obama Backed Down Against AIG


by Shamus Cooke
Global Research, March 22, 2009


The AIG controversy is one for the ages, for it starkly reveals who is really running our economic system, and to what end.

In an effort to please to irreconcilable groups— average Americans versus the financial elite— Obama has lately resembled a tightrope walker on a tattered rope. The AIG debate has now unsettled this delicate balance: it will no longer be so easy to give billions to Wall Street while fake-rage is hurled against this same group.

The spectacle of AIG executives receiving millions of dollars in bonuses— all of it taxpayer money— aroused a deep anger across the country. Somehow, a company in which taxpayers own 80% was shelling out millions to the same executives that ran the company into the ground.

Instead of the government forcing AIG executives into the unemployment office, it was recently revealed that Democratic politicians secretly enabled them to receive million-dollar bonuses through Obama’s stimulus bill.

When the public outcry began, Obama weakly replied that “all legal avenues were being pursuedâ€