"Contractually Obligated"??

I have stopped watching the news and now I am relegated to getting my news soley from the Internet. The reason for this change in behavior is that everytime I watch the news, I only find myself getting angrier and angrier. Sadly this is also the case when I read the news, but one can not put one's head in the sand.
Today, I came across this headline: "Insurance Giant AIG to Pay $165 Million in Bonuses". Does this make anyone else see red??? I mean, here AIG is, raking in $170 BILLION in tax payer dollars and they are using one tenth of OUR money to pay the executives who made the disasterous decisions leading their company to the brink of disaster BONUSES???
AIG says that they are "contractually obligated" to pay these bonuses. Failing to do so would have resulted in lawsuits, which is probably true. However, had the government allowed AIG to go into chapter 11 prior to the bailout, all bets would have been off. AIG would have had the flexibility to renegotiate their contractual obligations based on the reality of their finanacial situation. Instead, hundreds of employees who made poor choices are getting the benefit of our hard earned dollars.
Am I the only one who is angry here?

Spending Into Oblivion - Isn't Anyone Paying Attention?

Some months ago I was sitting in front of the television late one night when the foundations of my entire world were shaken beneath my feet. I watched as the President of the United States told all of us that our economy - the economy that drives the world - was on the verge of collapse. Since then I have heard story after story about the Great Depression part two. That should be enough to wake us up, shouldn't it America?
Honestly though, since then, what have we done? Have we tightened up our belts looking for ways to really improve our country or our economy? No. We have relied on politicians - some of the very people who got us in this damn mess in the first place - to discern a way out of this economic imbroglio. Am I the only one that has a problem with this course of action??
Instead of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, what do we do? Well, we borrow ourselves into oblivion on the belief that more money in the economy is going to save us - it won't. It will just make digging ourselves out of this hole all that much harder. We are borrowing our tomorrows to pay for today and so many as just marching on in quiet oblivion. How is this possible in my country?
So we just passed a 750+BILLION bailout. Great. Where is that money coming from? We are going to save the housing industry, the car makers, the airlines, and anyone else asking for a handout. Even the porn industry is trying to get in on the action.
If all of that weren't bad enough, we are now looking at ANOTHER $410 Billion in spending. That's an 8% increase over last year people. Just do the simple math - you are making less, your economy is on the verge of collapse but the admission of it's own leaders, and we are spending 8% more than last year??? The comment from one of my favorite movies comes to mind: " Go sell crazy somewhere else. We're full up here!" Part of said $410 BIllion bill is a program for a measly $500,000 for what is described as a Senate "pilot program" that will defray the cost of mass mail postcards to households notifying them of a nearby town meeting to be attended by any senator. Hello? Has anyone ever heard of a newspaper? How about the interent, it's free?
We are all in big trouble here people..... Buckle up, because it's going to be a very bumpy ride.