I've been thinking a bit more about Noam Scheiber's post on the retroactive tax on bonuses, and in particular, this bit: "My only hope is that there's a hidden genius at work here--a kind of unintentional good cop/bad cop routine. That is, maybe the House's efforts will get the AIG derivatives-meisters to cough up their bonuses, which will appease the public a bit and make the new law moot." Would recapturing the AIG bonuses defuse populist anger this point? My sense of the politics is that disgust at Wall Street has passed a tipping point, and from here on out, every measure will have to include something that satisfies the electorate's "hang the bastards" sensibility.Is that wrong? Would sufficient punishment of AIG and AIG alone render this episode moot going forward?
