Anger Rising

Hilzoy is furious about the AIG bonuses:

I don't think that rage normally leads to good policy. (Though, as I've said before, I really believe that it would help a lot with moral hazard if people found the experience of having the government bail out their firms profoundly unpleasant.) And I'm sure that my inner policy wonk will shortly regain control. Still, at the moment, it's awfully tempting. I think of people I've known who have worked hard all their lives for not very much money, only to be completely bankrupted by unforeseen medical catastrophes, and I imagine these people being asked to support investment bankers in the style to which they have become accustomed, and fury feels like exactly the right response.

My own frontal cortex remains flooded with anger right now as well. But when politics and economics are this out of whack, something unwise is usually about to happen.