I'm quite familiar with preferential payments, unfortunately. (I was deemed to have received one by a receiver who sued for recovery even though I had been paid for work done after the declaration of bankruptcy which is specifically exempted from consideration to be a preferential payment. My lawyer advised me to settle. In other precincts, they call this extortion.) There is, unfortunately, no bankruptcy to consider here.
ML/NJ
I have some experience in enforcing payment under contract.
However, in this case I still believe there to be a moral issue.
A paid employee, as the ball player example, has every right to be paid under his contract.
An executive who makes the major financial decisions in my view has a responsibility to both stockholders and creditors.
So there may be two groups in AIG who are to receive bonuses; one group deserving and the other group scoundrels who are skimming.
As I said, it would take a lot of lawyers and a court to determine whether there is any validity to that.
AIG was a conduit for all kinds of slush.
A secret conduit to foreign banks whose own governments would not help. Secret money to Goldman Sachs, etc. Who knows whose pockets were lined with that money?
So rather than taking bonuses away from AIG people, we should be using that outrage to end AIG altogether and to get out of office every single person involved in the scandal that is AIG.
In other words, stop ranting about taking bonuses back. Instead use the bonuses as the battle cry to win the battle.
Bonuses are not the battle. They are only a skirmish within the battle.
Same for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Use the outrage over those bonuses to end both organizations.
Use the outrage to hang Barney Frank, Chris Dodds, Shumer, Paulson and the whole criminal conspiracy.