AIG: How A Meme Spreads

fivethirtyeight.com:

One of the cool features at Memeorandum, my favorite aggregator of political content, is that you can warp back to any previous point in time to see which stories were dominating bandwidth on the World Wide Web. Here, for example, is what the world looked like on Election Night, or on the morning that Sarah Palin was selected to be John McCain's running mate.

I thought it would be useful to examine how the current controversy surrounding AIG has spread throughout the Internet over the past several days. This story has been a little bit unusual in that it's not all that newsworthy: AIG's intention to pay its so-called retention bonuses has been public knowledge for some time. But the story has absolutely blown up within the past 72 hours.

Read the whole story: fivethirtyeight.com

Comments

[twofish]

08:45 AM on 03/19/2009

It may just be that I have gone into shock over the number of zeros on the end of numbers nowadays, especially on government handouts. But this $165 million seems like chump change compared to the trillions they're slinging around. Let's look:

$ 2,000,000,000,000
$ 165,000,000
----------------------------
$ 1,999,835,000,000

See? Two trillion, the amount of money the Fed created this week, minus $165 million, leaves -- almost $2 trillion. Frightening, isn't it?

So, ok, claw it back or tax it away or shame the recipients into giving it back. Now let's get on with the "real money." Although if the outrage brings down Geithner, it may have been good for something beyond allowing everyone to vent their spleens.

[vjoseph]

12:31 PM on 03/18/2009

THANK YOU!!! I do remember how this story first came about back then and how Obama was angry about it. This is a perfect example of how Americans have short-attention span

[Spesabsquemetu]

12:31 PM on 03/18/2009

I think Congress owes the American people REPRESENTATION.
And not just concerning AIG bonuses at the taxpayers expense.

ALL BONUSES DISTRIBUTED AT TAXPAYERS EXPENSE NEED TO BE ADDRESSED.
GET THE MONEY BACK.

It is fraudulent to use our hard earned income to line the pockets of millionaires with taxpayers money, while denying the public the right to participate in the decision making concerning where their money was used.
This is outrageous disregard for the public's interests.
It is taxation without REPRESENTING the public's interests.

Merrill Lynch? AIG? WHO ELSE? Who else were the recipients of hard earned income, tax payers money, used to prop up fraudulent practices that leave Americans carrying the BURDENS of dishonest, reckless behaviors?

[nah415]

12:18 PM on 03/18/2009

This is a good story for all of the people who are distressed about the loss of daily newspapers that appear in print. This AIG story was NOT spread through newsprint -- it was spread through the blogosphere with the newspapers following, not leading. Although it is sad to lose your morning paper, more and more people are seeing the value of the internet for news. I hear people say they won't have a source for local news but you can be sure that once the gap is created by the loss of local newsprint, it will be filled by bloggers or other online sources of news.

The HuffPo is a case in point...

[AZterritory]

12:07 PM on 03/18/2009

At this point I don't really care where it started, who knew what, when, because in the end it will all turn around whether or not these schmucks got to keep the buck$ or not.

[munki]

11:49 AM on 03/18/2009

cybersphere...

new generation...

like forensic science...