Among the problems with demonizing bonuses is that it seems to inadvertently make populist out of otherwise conservative commentators and politicians. By engaging in an argument about the validity of AIG executives receiving bonuses, one has already moved to the populist side of the argument and missed the larger problems.No company should have been bailed out. Truly free markets require a natural process of evolution and survival of the fittest.As an example: There is no longer a commercial whaling industry. Harvesting whale oil to light our homes became obsolete because John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil made a technologically better product. Kerosene was a better, cleaner, cheaper alternative to whale oil. Later, Thomas A Edison was even more evolutionarily correct and his technology triumphed.If we, as a nation, had believed in the concept of government bailouts then, there would be no more whales; they would have gone the way of the DoDo Bird, harvested to extinction.But what of...(Read Full Post)