The politics of gratitude

Gratitude can be a lot of things. It can be overt, like the kind of thank yous you give to people over the holidays when they give you a gift, or it can be more subtle, like the kind that we give over social media all the time in the form of a retweet or a Facebook share.

And then there is gratitude in politics which, I dare say, can often be masked in aggressive, face-saving public rhetoric, and even look more like a fight than a thank you. But in politics, as in much of life, the key is in the end result.

AIG, the investment bank giant, was in trouble a few years ago. The kind of trouble that required them to get bailed out by the federal government. You remember the whole financial crisis thing, right? When the federal government basically had to purchase a controlling share of AIG stock in order to keep them solvent? Yeah, that was awesome.

Well, it seems that now that AIG is back on its feet and again making billions in profits, the number-crunchers over there saw a possible injustice that went along with the whole bail out scheme: what about lost profits?!

The former top executive at AIG is leading a shareholder lawsuit against the federal government, asking for $25 billion in damages, ostensibly based on the fifth amendment requirement that the federal government not take private property without just compensation. The federal government saved AIG rather than stole it, and even turned a bit of a profit for all their efforts.

AIG as a company chose NOT to be part of the lawsuit, which I think should be held up as a shining example of gratitude in politics. Thank you, AIG, for doing the right thing. It's a shame that your act will not get nearly the publicity that the mere intimation that you could have sued the federal government got. But don't even get me started on gratitude and perspective in the media…

Image courtesy of D.-graphy via flickr