Netlets for Wednesday, March 18

Isn't it interesting that a labor-related contract to pay executive bonuses is being explained as a legally binding obligation that must be paid? It seems to me that the same sorts of "management executives" at other stages of this economic melt-down have disregarded other legally binding contracts, such as labor contracts with workers, contracts for health care insurance and subsequent pension contracts with all kinds of employees, when it suited the executive/management interests.

When is a legal contract not a legally binding contract? Obviously, when the few benefit over the many. If one group of contracts can be set aside to ensure survival of the larger industry/business, so can the other.

How many jobs, pensions or health care payments could be (or could have been) made at the cost of these "bonuses," which are payment in addition to already exorbitant salaries? The arrogance of wealth continues to astound me.

DANA SMYSER, COON RAPIDS

A full tax on the bonuses Here's how our politicians can make AIG right with the American taxpayers: Institute a temporary 100 percent tax bracket on bonuses when your company received a government bailout. Pick your acronym but I liked MAT: mandatory (expletive) tax. So AIG can fulfill contractual obligations, and taxpayers don't have to incent executive failure.

DANIEL AYD, ROSEVILLE

Paulson's conflict of interest Amid the uproar of AIG's proposed payment of $165 million in bonuses comes the first disclosure, courtesy of the Associated Press, of how the insurance giant spent some of the billions given it by the TARP program engineered by then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. It identifies some of AIG's major trading partners who were insured against loss in derivatives contracts.

Before he became U.S. Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs. Paulson's decision for U.S. taxpayers to reimburse losses to that firm (but let Lehmann Brothers fail) seems to me to involve a personal conflict of interest.

It would have been nice to have some of this information last September when Congress was being pressured to approve TARP on a rush basis.

WILLIAM MCGAUGHEY, MINNEAPOLIS

Now leave Olson and her family alone Sara Jane Olson has paid her debt to society, and is no threat to our community. She should be welcomed back to Minnesota to complete her parole, and left in peace. Let Olson and her family move forward with their lives.

DIANNE KOCOUREK PLOETZ, ST. PAUL

There is a great deal to be learned here about a man who values political expedience over genuine compassion. It's disgusting, really, to have a second-term governor whose actions are motivated not by the common good but rather his own personal ambition and partisan agenda.

ROBERT REES, MINNEAPOLIS

A professional baseball league of their own I propose we make honest men of these steroid-filled athletes like Alex Rodriguez. Let's just have two leagues, one enhanced, the other unleaded. Can you imagine the team names in the new league? The Chicago Compounds, the Philadelphia Pharmacologists, the Seattle Experiments, the Los Angeles New Order. I'm juiced up just thinking about it!