The master American strategist John Boyd had a simple dictum: "when I see an effect, I ask,'Cui bono?' and then I see the cause, usually hiding behind a bunch of lies, distractions and misdirections."
The AIG bonus flap is the perfect example of what Boyd would see as an obvious manipulation and misdirection of the American "media" and publuic to conceal the real scandal in the AIG affair, which is the effective takeover of the U.S. financial system by investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Proof:
How many investment banking firms were there before the crisis?
Five: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Meryll Lynch, and Bear Stearns.
How many investment banks are there now?
One: Goldman Sachs.
Question: Who pulled the plug each time on the investment banks, like when AIG was allowed bailed out, and Lehman's was not?
Answer: Someone with direct or strong indirect ties to Goldman Sachs in the "American" government.
Question: Who is receiving billions of dollar payments from the Treasury, and probably tens of billions of dollars of payments indirectly when you count the Federal Reserve right now who could use a distraction?
Answer: Goldman Sachs.
Question: Who was the leading firm in terms of creating the financial weapons of mass destruction known as CMO's and CDO's at the heigh of the bubble that was simultaneously directly and indirectly through its foreign affiliates selling these instruments short like it was the end of financial times through the purchase of Credit Default Swaps from AIG who the Treaasury is now paying billions of dollars too?
Answer: Ding, ding, ding, you got it, Goldman Sachs.
The real scandal is what the press won't report, which is that one investment bank manipulated the others into committing suicide and used its power of the "American" government to make money coming and going at everyone else's expense, especially the American taxpayer's expense.
That is what John Boyd would see as patently obvious, and what you see if you just follow the money and power trails, which always come back to Goldman Sachs.
Love and kisses GS.