Washington got us into this mess when it started acquiring equity stakes in private companies. This was a bad idea for many reasons and this is one of them. We cannot continue to have the public, the press and our government scrutinizing every business decision made at these companies.

The issue of the day is the large sum of retention bonuses paid to AIG employees. Retention bonuses are a tool used in order to keep employees on board during a period of uncertainty at a company. AIG has been and remains on shaky footing. There are a host of reasons why employees may not want to remain at AIG and there are a host of reasons why AIG's shareholders would want them to stay. Unfortunately, we are all AIG shareholders at this point and, as outrageous as it may sound, we need AIG to retain as many of its good employees as possible.

Many in this debate have been claiming that if AIG had gone bankrupt, bonuses would not have been paid. This is may not be the case. It is very common for companies to enter into retention bonus agreements with employees upon bankruptcy to encourage employees to remain with the company until it emerges from bankruptcy.

Did some scoundrels get big payouts the other day? Almost certainly. But chances are that the majority of the people receiving the bonuses are decent and hard working. AIG is a people business. Its value (or lack thereof) is driven by the people sitting in the seats. AIG's owners should be doing whatever is possible to keep them there because as more of them leave (as many already have, taking their business relationships with them), the value of the company will drop even further.

The scandal here is that the government got involved in owning this company in the first place. At the time politicians were insisting how great a deal this was for taxpayers as we were getting an ownership stake and the country would reap the benefits of AIG's future success. Maybe so, but along the way we're going to have to suffer through all the pains that come with owning and running a business. And in the end, we may end up big losers as well. It would have been better to either let AIG go bankrupt or provide it loans to weather the storm. Instead we chose to become owners, blind to all the ugliness that comes with ownership.

WE (the taxpayers) NEVER SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT EQUITY IN AIG.

It is our politicians (both the past and current administrations and in Congress) who have failed us. We bought equity in a company and didn't know what we were buying. We were told this was a good deal for the taxpayer (as opposed to an outright bailout or loan) because we would share in the future upside when AIG turned around. However, there is always downside risk when you take an equity stake and this risk was not communicated. Even worse, the risk was not anticipated. Companies use retention bonuses all the time when they go through periods of uncertainty in order to keep their valuable assets (their people) in place. That the government acquired an equity stake in AIG without reviewing the company's retention plans is outrageous.

In this case, the retention bonuses seem to have worked. The bonuses were only collected by the people who stayed at AIG for the prescribed period of time. Some of them have since left. Joan, this is not "criminally amoral." There is no evidence (so far) that the people collecting the bonuses were involved in any wrongdoing themselves. Perhaps some of them are scoundrels but we don't know the details. However, if Washington pursues the courses of action it is threatening, then our leaders will be criminally negligent. AIG will lose any remaining appeal it may have to its best employees and they will leave to pursue sunnier career options. AIG is a professional services firm. If the best people leave the company, AIG will become worthless and its owners (the taxpayers) will lose.

It is Washington who dropped the ball here and our politicians drumming up outrage over greed and corruption as a smokescreen. Let's not let them off the hook.

Reading many of the statements being made about AIG by politicians, the press and various talking heads and commentators, it is clear that many are not acknowledging our relationship with AIG. The government bought a huge stake in the company. (I hate that we did it but we did so let's deal with it.) We own most of AIG. This is our company. Let's start talking like it's our company. This is no longer simply an issue of needing AIG to survive because of its importance to the world of finance. We need it to survive and thrive because we have a huge amount of money invested in it.

Penalizing AIG by withdrawing funds equal to the retention bonuses is silly. Again, this is our company...why do we want to hurt it?

Encouraging an adversarial relationship with AIG employees is silly. These are our employees. We need them to remain with AIG and do everything they can to save it. For the vast majority of AIG employees this means keep doing exactly what they've been doing...most of the business units are quite profitable. If we create an environment where employees are poorly treated we risk losing them, their skills and their relationships. If this happens, our investment in this company will be a certain mistake.

The government should never have started acquiring equity stakes in AIG and other private companies. But now that it has, it needs to start acting like and owner. For elected officials this should mean the days of using AIG as a punching bag to get your quote in the paper are over. After all, if they didn't like the way AIG was conducting business, they never should have bought the company.