To: The Dallas Morning News 
Date:  September 17, 2008
Subject: 85 billion dollar taxpayer bailout for AIG insurance company
Result: not printed (see note at end of letter)

Dear Editor,

The agreement of the Federal Reserve to put $85 billion of taxpayer money at risk to bail out AIG is one thing. What I am wondering is how much of that money will go to continue to support the high salaries and opulent lifestyles of the executives, not only of AIG, but of the thousands of companies it does business with – which, it is said, will suffer greatly if we do not bail AIG out if this mess. That's a big part of the justification for the bailout. I think we should be implementing strict controls on the costs, including salaries and benefits, of all those companies we're going to save.

There is also the question of just where is this 85 billion dollars going to come from, as well as all the other bailout money we're providing? Assuming we don't have a large pot of unused cash lying around that I don't know about, I guess we'll be going deeper into the hole with China or whatever other countries we borrow money from to pay our bills. 

Thank you, John Vehon

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note (9-26-08): This letter was written before the bailout amount went from $85 billion to $700 billion a day or two later, and before a zillion other people expressed the same concern about the very high pay (with bonuses, etc.) for the CEO's of large, failed financial companies.  I was therefore inclined to remove this letter from my site.  However I am leaving it up just because my suggestion goes beyond the pay of the CEO's of the large companies that get bailed out (if the bailouts go through).  Number one, to me, the pay and benefits of all employees of those companies should be reviewed.  Plus, again, based on the proposition that many other companies and their executives and employees enjoyed very high profits and salaries that they would not have received if the big companies had been run on a realistic basis – the same companies that, it was said, would also go out of business if the big companies fail – then the pay and benefits of the executives and employees of those companies should be looked at too.