In reading some further testimony, I have come to the realization that some of these salaries that people were working for were, in fact, nothing at all withou the bonuses involved. Some were working for an effective salary of $1USD, but with the understanding that at the end of the contract, a significant bonus was going to be added. The idea, for them, was that they worked hard for 10 or 12 months, and they feel entitled to the 6 figure bonuses coming in.

My view on this is a little different, in that, well, they may have worked hard for those 10 or 12 months, but the effect of their actions and the work that they did was, in some cases, directly linked to the potential downfall of the company and required government handouts in order to keep it afloat. In return for such shoddy work, they still feel as though they deserve the salary they were promised.

This isn't counting the execs like this fellow, who is forfeiting his bonus, after receiving a salary of $1, in spite of the fact that he was not involved with the sector of AIG that led to the problems, nor did he profit from this. In his own words: “I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of AIG-FP because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity – directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.”

I think that there needs to be more effective negative reinforcement in the business sector. Perhaps not iron-fistedness, but actually holding people criminally accountable for their actions. In a case like this, where the economy takes a huge hit, it is possibly to trace a trail to people who could be called instigators, or at least were snowflakes causing avalanches. Why aren't they held responsible for their actions? Why is it that the companies who bought the faulty goods, either knowlingly or unknowlingly (they have my pity with the latter and my scorn for the former) are being held fully responsible for them rather than those who sold them, knowing the goods were faulty? If it was a casual transaction on the street, this wouldn't even apply, but the repercussions of this action completely transcend the concept of "buyer beware".

So, how is it that the snake oil salesmen get away with this (I'm looking at the banks and their ridiculous mortgages, although I could be mistaken), and the people who started this rousing round of hot potato and those who kept it going aren't really getting pegged with anything? What incentives, or what style of incentives, could be employed to prevent something like this from happening again?