The House of Representatives has had enough. The members today are voting to impose a 90% tax rate on bonuses received after December 31, 2008 by employees of firms receiving more than $5 billion in federal aid. This is what happens after the public flogging of AIG’s CEO does not satisfy the public Congressional outrage. Two thirds majority is required to pass the bill. AIG CEO’s yesterday’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee acknowledged that the compensation culture at AIG (like so many other financial firms) was that of baseless entitlement. In other words, the bonuses “were not affected“ by the firm’s financial performance. It’s a roller-coaster day on Wall Street. The Dow started on an upward trajectory only to fall around 10am, gain some value back and fall yet again around 11am. The downward trend continued into early afternoon with the Dow hovering around the 7,400 mark. NASDAQ and S&P 500 were also down. The markets are reacting to yesterday’s announcement that the Fed will purchase $1 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. This radical action turns the Fed into the holder of a long-term U.S. government debt rather than a short-term debt holder role it has held so far. The Federal Reserve now goes by the nickname “Rambo Fed.” Meanwhile the dollar slid against all the major currencies, as the international markets reacted to the Fed’ s announcement. For all of China’s bravado about its economic prospects and insistence that the country can easily reach its growth target of 8% this year, the reality is inescapable: China’s economic fortunes are still at the mercy of the global economic situation. The World Bank has just revised its 2009 growth forecast for China from 7.5% to 6.5%. The Bank sited falling world-wide demand for Chinese goods as the main reason for the downgrade in growth forecast.