The Straight Skinny

Okay... Does anyone know what's REALLY going on with AIG and these %#*^!$@ bonuses? I'm hearing, on the one hand, that the executives who are receiving the 160+ million dollars are the same people who create this whole mess by placing huge bets on "exotic financial products," whatever the %#*^ that means. On the other hand, I'm also hearing that the people receiving the bonuses were involved in other portions of the business some of which were actually profitable.

But if the names of the executives receiving the bonuses have just now been released to law enforcement, and the media doesn't have them, how does anyone know if a given executive was involved in Credit Default Swaps or other hinky business practices? And if we don't really know what people were up to, should we really be making definitive statements one way or the other?