A.I.G.: a lightning rod for discontent?

It's apparently not just the top executives who're feeling the backlash over AIG putting some of its government rescue money toward bonuses for executives:

Now these executives are toxic, and those communities are rattled and divided. Private security guards have been stationed outside their houses, and sometimes the local police drive by. A.I.G. employees at the company’s office tower in Lower Manhattan were told to avoid leaving the building while a demonstration was going on outside. The memo also advised them to avoid displaying company-issued ID cards when they left the office and to abandon tote bags or other items with the A.I.G. logo.

One A.I.G. executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared the consequences of identifying himself, said many workers felt demonized and betrayed. “It is as bad if not worse than McCarthyism,” he said. Everyone has sacrificed the employees of A.I.G.’s financial products division, he said, “for their own political agenda.”

Update: The Economist suggests a new pain indicator:

This crisis has brought a burst of creativity in the development of indicators of pain, from the subprime implode-o-meter to the downgrade-o-meter for structured securities. Perhaps it is time for the outrage-o-meter. Its needle would have jumped off the scale this week as America’s public, politicians and media huffed and puffed over the $165m in bonuses paid to members of the financial-products division that brought down American International Group (AIG). Troubles in that unit have forced the government to bail out the giant insurer, so far to the tune of $173 billion.

AIG’s wayward eggheads are not the only ones squirming. The affair is a test of the Obama administration’s handling of financial excess — and so far it has been ham-fisted. After flip-flopping over whether it had the authority to meddle with employment contracts, the Treasury eventually seized on a clause in the recently passed stimulus bill that may allow it to retrieve payments deemed contrary to the public interest. Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary, promised to recoup the money by deducting some of it from the next $30 billion tranche of aid for the company.