Why are we still giving money to AIG?

I realize that Tim Geithner hasn't been able to find much staff that will pass muster with Congressional Republicans and the media, but one would think that a Treasury Secretary ought to carry at least some moral authority. But the top brass at AIG is starting to look like Nelson Muntz:

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

...and because the firm's executives have decided that Geithner is an ineffectual wuss that they can push around -- not without some justification.

If Geithner can't -- or won't -- get a handle on these extortionists, then he ought to step down so that the President can find someone who can. I don't mind paying taxes. I don't mind even paying higher taxes if they'll help us get out of this mess. But I am right now working 7 days a week on a crunch project, and the thought of paying higher taxes so that Geithner can give more money to the same executives who brought AIG to the brink makes me want to go running to Washington with torches and pitchforks demanding an end to this no-strings-attached handout to greedy corporate bastards.

But I'm on a deadline. Because unlike executives at AIG, I actually have to produce in order to keep MY job.