The irony is that these "bonuses" aren't meritocratic like your good teacher/bad teacher scenario. These are retention bonuses contractually agreed to by AIG and their employees.

Last year, back when AIG knew things were hitting the fan, they decided to offer a carrot to employees who would stay through the storm. Turns out, AIG is "too big to fail" so those that decided to stay with AIG through our current adventure appear to be getting rewarded for incompetence.