AIG - Unforgiven

So I've been thinking about the bonuses again. A long drive listening to the news all day I think I know more about the subject then I could have ever wanted to know. Sadly it seems like they really do have to make the payments, and the more I think about it, the tax ideas being floated to recover the money seem like the very definition of ex post facto.

So in hindsight I still like the audit idea.

There's this line at the end of "Unforgiven" that comes to mind. A fairly hasty Google search turns up this site and the quote:

MUNNY

                   I'm comin' outta here... an' any
                fucker I see out there, I'm gonna
                kill him... an' any fucker takes a
                shot at me, I ain't just gonna
                kill him, but I'm gonna kill his
                wife an' all his friends an' burn
                his fucking house, hear?

The real solution here is for the government to persuade the execs that its in their best interest to just decide not to take the money. It makes sense, without the bailout they'd get nothing. Now they have salary and jobs. Right minded people ought to figure out they don't need a bonus - and turning it down doesn't violate the existing contracts.

Perhaps after a personal call from the President of the United States might drive home the point.

And if not, well we ought to arrange the most invasive, annoying, awful, embarrassing investigation that the Federal, State, County and Local Governments can come up with. Think of it as a bureaucratic stimulus package - create some investigator jobs. National, State, and Local IRS, reassess their house, send the building inspector to their home and business along with OSHA and the heath department, have immigration set up outside their homes, maybe send DCFS out to interview their friends, all the way down to sending the ASPCA to check on their pets. Go back too. If in 2007 for doing absolutely nothing I had to pay fees and penalties on an auto registration in CT for six months of 1996 I think we can come up with SOMETHING on these greedy bastards.

Maybe it starts like this:

I have this vision in my head, of Joe Biden, in a cowboy hat, at the podium in the White House Press Room:

I'm gonna be watching... an' any fucker that takes that bonus, I'm gonna audit them... an' any fucker that keeps that bonus, I ain't just gonna audit him, but I'm gonna audit his wife an' all his friends an' seize his fucking house, hear?