Bernanke on the AIG Bonuses on 60 Minutes

It's a mess. Attitudes are changing, and I'm sure that the stress test the Treasury is putting the banks through has an analog in the halls of Congress. As for the bonuses, it's as much media driven as it is a political smoke screen. Think about it: it's a sensational representation of greed at the top and corruption within the system. But for politicians, it's a different thing altogether.

Everyone knows there's as much accountability in government as there is among the CEOs and their minions. And I hear politicians - Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, John Boehner, Dodd, and even Obama - blaming politicians, some of them even themselves, every day. And they're starting to look back not 8 years but 12 years or more as they stop using this "what we inherited" crap.

I was in corporate America for several years and I understand the nature of these compensation contracts. But their very legality points to the unconscionable nature of the greater crisis: Our laws don't reflect our values.

My prediction: some of the as yet unnamed bonus recipients (but not many) will return their bonuses; Liddy, the CEO of AIG, who is a piece of milk toast standing behind not only the legality of the contracts but his company's policy guideline that these bonuses are necessary to retain good people (are you kidding me?!), will be pushed to the brink of obstruction of justice when he appears before Congress, but he will cave and Cuomo and the Feds will get the names and info they requested; and finally, the bonus money that isn't returned will instead be added to AIG's bill to the American people. It's the best we can hope for. That, and that the government doesn't allow AIG to fail.

If you can, catch the U.S. governement's publicity piece on 60 Minutes from Sunday. Bernanke gave the first-ever Fed Chairman interview, scared out of his skull, but had some interesting things to say. He is one of the country's foremost authorities on the Great Depression.

WATCH 60 MINUTES (CBS, MARCH 15, 2009):