???In another twist of predictable corruption, the American International Group (AIG) is back for more - this time, after doling out big fat bonuses to executives.
???Is anyone surprised?
???The insurance giant decided that a good, strategic fiscal move would be to hand out $165 million in bonuses to executives, just months after embracing billions in bailout money, aka your tax dollars.
???The insurance giant is now asking for bailout part deux: $30 billion more from a government that shouldn't be handing out cash like Halloween candy.
???As Barack Obama leads the world in shaking an angry fist at the insurance giant, we're left to wonder: how many chances do you get?
???Greed and a gross misappropriation of funds (not to mention trust) have been thrown in the nation's face for the better part of a year now, with many left wondering why an organization plagued by gluttony and avarice should receive bailout billions while small businesses receive no assistance.
???Many are left to wonder how, after one slap in the face, we would still turn the other cheek.
???The answer? This isn't America anymore.
???The United States of bygone years wouldn't have handed out cash to private companies, no matter how dire the situation. It's called capitalism: the companies and businesses that cannot survive based on their own merit, or who riddle themselves with mismanagement, should be allowed to fail, allowing new corporations to bloom.
???Yet all we hear is that this economic crisis is unprecedented, and so there is, therefore, no "right" solution.
???The idea that the current economic crisis cannot be solved by letting these companies struggle based on a lack of precedence that struggling will lead to further financial woes need to brush up on their American history, and perhaps look farther back than 1929.
???Those who are against the initial bailout knew what most know now: that we cannot save AIG from itself.
???Now, as AIG comes crawling back for more, Obama should do more than say "no" - he and Congress should scream it, the nation's pocketbook following suit.
???Let us recall a time at the dawn of the nation's history. At the time of the Revolutionary War and the years that followed, financial doom and gloom ruled the day. The American dollar was not only worthless - at many points, it was nonexistent, as Congress toyed with various forms of currency.
???Robert Morris, the nation's superintendent of finance at the time, understood that printing money with no currency to stand behind it was a dangerous endeavor - one that, despite our two centuries of separation, still stands true.
???"When Morris became superintendent of finance in 1781," writes Robert E. Wright in his 2006 portrait of Morris, "he inherited an economy in the throes of hyperinflation. To turn the economy around, he had to drastically reduce the money supply. His policies caused a lot of pain, especially in the hinterland, but not as much pain as all Americans would have suffered had he allowed prices to continue to spiral upward."
???At this time, money wasn't pumped into businesses-let alone greedy businesses-because there simply was none. And somehow, the country survived. The economy turned around, the American dollar gaining value and holding more weight than the paper it was on.
???One experiment in bailoutizationism hasn't worked, at least for the self-indulgent AIG. Let us try another experiment.
???Let them fall.
???Times might get rough, and there will be pain. People will suffer-people might even die from one employment-related starvation, homelessness and the like. And that is unfortunate.
???But why prolong the life of a company that cannot give anything back - including your tax dollars - to this already struggling country?
???Let capitalism take its rightful course in American history. At this point, the worst we can be is wrong.
???Then we can print more money, right?
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
