Here we go again!

Here we go again!

American International Group is paying out another round of whopping bonuses to execs.

Not surprisingly, the move has led to anger on Capitol Hill, at street level here in the US and I'm sure wherever you are now.

American International Group is lavishing up to $100 million in bonuses to executives in the firm's financial products division - yes - that's the outfit that nearly brought the giant insurer to the brink of collapse at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. (Hey! Nice work if you can get it)

This latest round of payouts comes almost a year after bonuses worth $168 million went to the same department.

On the streets of Washington, DC taxpayers who helped prop up AIG on the basis it was "too big to fail" are angry:

"I think it's really outrageous. I voted for President Obama but he really needs to get rid of Geithner and all the people who are enabling these scumbags to carry on with this and AIG some congressman said it stands for Arrogance, incompetence and greed," vents one.

"I'm not sure of the specifics but it seems to me, just generally speaking - the value of those employees compared to the value of others who are not working is not that dramatic, which would allow them to be paid in such a way," says another.

"The management's responsible for everything. If the ship goes down in the navy the captain responsible for the ship - he's the one who takes the court marshal and takes the heat so why shouldn't they take the heat," argues a third.

AIG was bailed out with a $182.3 billion in US government aid in late 2008 and early 2009.

The latest bonuses have drawn fire from Republicans in Congress.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, meanwhile, told a Congressional panel on Wednesday the bonuses are "outrageous" and that contracts like the ones now being honoured, where an executive gets rewarded even if the firm nearly collapses, shouldn't be drawn up again.

President Obama's "Pay Tsar" Ken Feinberg went on national TV this morning to say that the issue of hefty bonuses for AIG employees will end in March when bonus pledges - in some cases signed by the company and it's employees years ago - start to run out and are replaced by leaner, less lucrative contracts.

For now though, news that AIG is coughing up $100 million more in bonus payments may anger politicians on Capitol Hill and ordinary voters in the street.

But as Feinberg put it, "it's outrageous but legal!"