PICTURE NOTE: In the picture is a sign for a church that has a "For Sale by Owner" sign attached!

I've been jobless for two years. I've looked at jobs that are two hours away with the full intention to drive 2 hours one way twice a day. I'm desperate. I'm more depressed than the economy right now.

And then I turn on the TV this morning to find that AIG is giving incentives out to "execs". I'm not talking about an extra week of vacation, an extra buck an hour, or even both of those options! No! They're giving actual bonuses to these people.

I thought, "Okay, well, they probably deserve a little extra pay. I'm not going to pitch a fit over a couple hundred bucks." Then I find out, like a punch in the gut, that they're giving one hundred and sixty MILLION dollars ($160,000,000.00)!  I don't know how many people are going to get a piece of that, but even if they're giving an equal share to 160 people, that's a MILLION apiece!

I've attached a spreadsheet with other staggering figures, but the one that really stood out to me is the amount each employee would receive if they each got a cut! AIG and its subsidiaries have approximately 116,000 (according to the AIG website). $160,000,000.00 divided equally among 116,000 is a staggering $1,379.31!!! But you can bet the "execs" aren't sharing the wealth with the janitor!

I know people will jump all over me for saying that the who are getting this bonus don't deserve the money. But, honestly, if the "higher ups" in AIG and other companies can't see that it's in terribly bad taste to give bonuses at a time like this, then it would seem to me that there isn't a soul employed in a bonus-worthy position who deserves anything other than a public cuss-out!

Also, I'd like to point out that if these execs were worth the money about to be dropped on them, perhaps the nation's economy wouldn't be falling apart. Do you want to  pay the American public back, AIG? Fire the execs and hire some of the folks who've been out of a job for months and who are eager to help you fix this hole you've dug!

And if anyone says that these employees getting bonuses need the money... let me say this: Unless you're Oprah or Bill Gates, you don't shouldn't NEED more than $100,000 annually to live. And if you do... you're trying to buy happiness without making it on your own. You're compensating for missing something else. Hell, the President doesn't get $400,000 in salary! There are whole families who live off nearly half of that! And even though I haven't had a job, I don't even get unemployment compensation!!!!! NOTHING! So don't tell me it takes that much money to live!

Furthermore, if they took that same $160 million and divided it amongst

each unemployed American (350 million of us), we'd all get $0.46.

That's just enough to buy a stamp for the letter telling them where to

shove their bonus.

I have struggled for 3 weeks now over the fact that I can't buy flowers

to put on my grandmother's grave. And to wake up to news that AIG is

giving this money to people who (in my opinion) don't deserve it, makes

me sick to my stomach. It also makes me wonder if I have to be a useless, money-hungry, conniving witch to get and keep another job. If that's true, I'll just start my own web design and development business from my couch.

It ain't worth it to be worthless.