It’s no secret a lot of folks are pretty peeved at AIG and the arrogance of the bonuses paid to executives who cashed in and left the building.  We’d all like to know what people knew and when they knew it and all of the other details of the millions of dollars involved, if not billions.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is digging deep to learn who got what and how much. And, yes,  that’s all nice to know, too.  Bank of America paid how much to whom and for what?  You bet we’re upset our taxpayer dollars rewarded scoundrels who necessitated the tax dollar payments in the first place.

However, when the history of these events is written down the road, they’ll likely be footnotes.  If the outcome of all these government expenditures isn’t positive, however, they may not even make footnote status.

With well more than a trillion dollars represented by bailouts and stimulus packages and costs for our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq so far, the percentage represented by $3 billion in bonuses is so small as to be insignificant, frankly.  If your calculator will even go as high as $1 trillion, do the math.  There are twelve zeros in one trillion;  by comparison, one billion has only nine.

So, $3 billion in bonuses represents merely three-tenths of one percent of one trillion dollars.  If you made $3 billion per year in salary, you would have to work more than three thousand years to earn $1 trillion.

The Obama administration today has rolled out its bank plan, proposing steps to remove many of the troubled assets from banks’ books that contributed to our current economic woes.  Under the new so-called “Public-Private Investment Program,” taxpayer funds will be used to tickle partnerships with private investors to encourage the buying up of assets poisoned by sub prime loans on the verge of default.

The intention is to clear up some of the bank clutter that’s causing them to lose billions of dollars, and at the same time to facilitate credit flow in the country.  The estimate is for about $75 billion to $100 billion in initial investment with further review before more funds were spent.

We’ve been listening to experts tell us since last fall that the nation’s largest banks were at the core of any recovery efforts – - the making of a healthy bank system in the US being the best way to spur that recovery on.  We’ve been waiting all those months for today’s illumination on the Administration’s plans, and it’s time to pay attention.

This is the ball we want to keep our eye on, people.  So far, the market has responded favorably, shooting up over 300 points by mid day following the announcement.  Some investors, then, consider the plan to be positive news.

Sure, let’s be angry that our tax dollar largess is being abused.  This morning’s news also carried a piece about JP Morgan Bank, the recipient of a few of those billions of our dollars, spending some of it on new corporate jets and a major expansion and overhaul of its private air facility in Westchester, just outside New York City.  Let’s string up the bastard who made that decision, too.

These numbers are just staggering, and beyond our normal comprehension.  Politicians banter about a few hundred billion here and there, just as they have thought nothing of spending in excess of $607 billion just on the Iraq war alone.  If I have a $5 bill in my pocket when I leave the house, I feel pretty rich, so a billion here and a billion there really aren’t a part of my every day life.

I can’t feel it when the government spends a trillion dollars.  It doesn’t add to my living expenses this month, or next.  I may not feel it in my lifetime, either, unless this plan fails utterly.  My grandson will, though, as he will be paying for these times long after I’m gone.  I’ve already apologized to him, though, and that’s about all I can do.

We want and need someone to blame for this, someone to take our anger out on, find the ratbastards who put us in this mess in the first place, or find someone to burn at the stake.  So, we’ll rail against the bonuses at AIG because we can understand real people who took the money and ran, however much or little it may have been.

But, let’s keep our eye on the ball that really matters.  The rest is, by comparison, chump change.