Photo: WSJ

We're all angry at AIG for losing all that money like that. Really angry. Like, we'd just like to punch that bastard in the face (if it were a bastard and not a multinational company) and scream, "YOU BASTARD!" and then take away its pay and burn it along with its favorite records and T-shirts on the lawn. But what would that accomplish, really, other than making us look like a psycho? Douglas Elliott, a fellow with the Brookings Institution, talks us down in today's Wall Street Journal.

"Unfortunately ... the truly emotionally satisfying things are all going to just hurt us. The taxpayer is better off venting their anger in a different way rather than punishing the companies that we own."

It's true. There are other ways to vent.

Like you could take up kickboxing. Or capoeira (although don't pronounce it with the accent — people who do that are really annoying). Or TP the headquarters of 85 Broad Street. And then maybe, one day, you'll run into AIG CEO Bob Benmosche, and by then all you'll want to do is bury your face in his belly and let the tears soak through his polo shirt. And we think that would probably be okay to do, since you pay his salary.

AIG's Rescue Bedevils U.S. [WSJ]
Related: Show Me the Money [NYM]