The Times says 15 of the 20 largest bonus recipients at AIG Financial Products will be returning the money, for a total of about $30 million. The story implies that Andrew Cuomo deserves the credit (or, at least, it allows him to claim it). But is that really true? What if the bonus recipients were responding to pleas by AIG CEO Ed Liddy? Or to the House bonus-tax measure? Or to various forms of shaming by their friends and neighbors? Or to general public outrage?
This development strikes me as way, way overdetermined.
--Noam Scheiber