American Insurance Group (AIG) has been bailed out twice by the government in order to keep the economy alive. After AIG received their first bailout they threw a boat party for all of the employees to celebrate their "accomplishment". After the second bail out AIG decided to reward their executives with large bonuses. This action made the country furious because the company received 170 billion dollars from the United States tax payers. AIG claims that these bonuses were necessary to attract top talent to run the company and make the business batter. It turns out that eleven out of seventy-three AIG employees who received one million dollars or more in bonuses no longer are employed at AIG. Congress wants to tax the recipients of theses bonuses in order to regain the money and send where it is needed. Although many believe that it is none of the government's business what AIG decides to do with the money, I agree with those who criticize AIG for their terrible decision making. The government is clearly involved in the situation because the money comes from them. I believe that this money should be retrieved by the government and then sent to wherever it is needed.

March filled with Madness

When March First comes around everyone begins to talk about the NCAA tournament. The tournament consists of a field of the 65 best teams in college basketball. Some of these teams are automatically given a bid by winning their confrence tournaments, and others are voted in by a comitee full of experts on College basketball. The questions asked are who will make it and of the select teams that do make it who will be crowned as the champion? This year these questions are especially confusing because the confrence tournaments this season have been full of upsets and the teams that many though were the best may not turn out to be. For instance, In the Big East quarter finals both projected number one seeds Conneticut and Pittsburg lost to teams that were questionable to even make the NCAA tournament. Conneticut lost Syracuse in a thrilling six over time game and Pittsburg lost to West Virginia in another thriller. Also a third projected number one seed in North Caralina lost in the Semi-Final game of the Atlanic Coast Confrence (ACC) tournament to a team also on the bubble of the tournament in Florida State. With all of these top ranked teams losing in their confrence tournaments it makes it very confusing for experts to predict a champion.

Madoff Pleads Guilty

This morning the infamous Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty to all eleven felony counts. He took over 68 billion dollars from over 45 hundred people from across America. This posses several interesting questions. Because he is pleading guilty to eleven felony counts, many ask why is he being permitted to return home for two months before he is sentenced to a lifetime in jail? Also, several of his investors had sent memos to The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the huge returns on people's money that he claimed to have made. Many wonder why he was never investigated? According the National Public Radio (NPR) one of the main reasons that SEC did not investigate Madoff was because they didn't want large funds companies to not talk to them. NPR believes that this is completely ridiculous because the SEC has one responsibility and they are not fulfilling it. Although Madoff spent a large portion of the money on his multiple homes and luxuries, that cannot begin to account for 68 bullion dollars. And the question that many are asking is where did all of this money go and how are the investors going to be reimbursed? A large portion of these investors have lost almost all of their retirement savings. Please leave your comments if you have an answer or opinion to any of these questions.