This year’s AIG bonuses are smaller than last year’s, but they are still a huge amount of money. American International Group will pay $100 million worth of bonuses to employees at the company’s Financial Products division.

Last year, AIG bonuses were $168 million. Individuals slated for bonuses agreed this year that they would accept 10 to 20 percent less for their AIG bonuses. Still, this might do little to curb the outrage many Americans and their leaders feel regarding handing out bonuses at a company that received guaranteed payday loans from the government to keep it from failing.

More AIG bonuses

The $100 million in AIG bonuses that will be given out this month aren’t the last of the bonuses. Only those who agreed to accept the smaller bonuses will get paid this month. Next month, those who prefer to wait longer for the full amount will get their bonuses, which will mean probably more than another $10 million in AIG bonuses.

The deadline to pay all AIG bonuses to employees at Financial Products is March 15. According to Henry Unger of AJC, Financial Products is “the unit whose risky derivatives deals brought the insurer to the brink of collapse in 2008.”

Trouble with AIG bonuses

Unger also reports that “Government and AIG officials have been eager to avoid a repeat of the public furor that erupted last March when an earlier round of payments — worth $168 million — went to the same set of employees.”

It seems to me that if AIG really wanted to avoid public furor, the company would not hand out the AIG bonuses. What do you think? If a company accepts government bailout money, should the government have a say in whether or how much that company pays for bonuses? Or do you think that the government shouldn’t have a say? Do you think the government should not have paid to bail out AIG in the first place?

Image from Flickr.

I think a lot of my fellow Americans would agree that we can be a bit cocky at times. It’s funny, though, because the U.S. lags so far behind other countries when it comes to health care and education. Plus we are in so much debt, I don’t think any amount of credit repair could help us. Also, I have known ever since I can remember that all kinds of tests have shown that American students lag behind those in many other countries when it comes to academics.

Well, the White House has decided to do something about that. The government will spend $250 million, which will be matched by private funding to bring the total to $500 million, to prepare and train 10,000 new math and science teachers, according to the Washington Post.

What will the money do?

The Post says that the U.S. federal government is spending this money on mat and science education “aiming to help the nation compete in key fields with global economic rivals.” Perhaps so we Americans will stop buying all of our cars and electronics from Japan and China? From the Washington Post:

With funding from high-tech businesses, universities and foundations, the initiative seeks to prepare more than 10,000 new math and science schoolteachers over five years and provide on-the-job training for an additional 100,000 in science, technology, engineering and math.

Though the government funding for this project is going toward a very good and much-needed cause, it’s a whole lot of money during a time when the government has been spending, spending, spending. I am sure we can expect to hear a whole lot of squawking about how much it costs and how much money the government is throwing around. What do you think? Is spending $250 million in government funds for math and science teachers worth it?