Get out the dogs, sic' those bastards! Hang 'em high! The public lynching continues on AIG bonuses with this latest action: 19 States Launch Fraud Probe:

To ensure the investing public, as was promised, that money received by the company is being utilized to improve the financial welfare of the company, not to pad the pockets of the same individuals who led to the financial crisis in the first place.

The actual letter is here.

While I am thrilled there is increasing focus on derivatives, structured finance, I'm not so sure focusing in on individuals will get to the bottom of this Ponzi scheme. We have structured financial products all over, everyone was in on this game, not just AIG.

They need to get to the bottom of these products, precisely how corporations could even allow some of these models to be used in business and how was this entire $65 trillion derivatives market even created.

I don't know if they can hunt down individuals responsible for beyond every executive is a team of geeks claiming specialized knowledge creating these products. Beyond every team of quants are managers demanding these financial engineers generate mathematical models as if mathematical modeling is something one can just produce and bring to market in 10 weeks.

Incompetence? Absolutely. But isn't the real monster the system itself? The monster is in spreadsheets, computerized trading systems, black box models and a hell of a lot of people trying to keep their jobs, get their bonuses who weren't going to stay something is funky in the process.

Finally the monster is in trying to recoup money for various structured financial products that were pure economic fiction in the first place. Give it up Global elites, all of this financial sector wealth is pure illusion. You cannot get it back without destroying the real economy.

Can you prosecute an entire world for not declaring the Emperor has no clothes?

The Monster is the ghost in the machine, it's the system. You cannot hunt it down so easily to satisfy Populist outrage.