in the middle of the night

The bonus claw back excise tax legislation hurtling through Congress this week will be an economic train wreck at warp speed. It will:

• severely hamper the financial industry’s ability to clean up the mortgage mess

• decimate the ability of banks receiving TARP funds to recruit top drawer talent

• embolden Congressional, labor and other anti-business groups as they try to dismantle the economy’s wealth creating engines

I am just as unhappy about the AIG retention bonuses as anyone, but the proposed excise tax legislation is a legal version of a lynch mob.

If Congress does this to the bankers and traders, no one is safe.