When giant corporations swallow little ones, and especially when smaller corporations borrow money to take over big ones, the new acquisition is often broken up and sold off to pay the debt. These fire sales throw dozens--if not tens of thousands--out of work. It's called downsizing.

As one example, after AB InBev bought out Anheuser Bush a year or so ago in what amounted to a hostile takeover, thousands here in St. Louis and thousands more in Belgium lost their jobs to the goals of "streamlining operations," "consolidating debt," and "making the company profitable."

The government, acting through TARP and other programs run by the Federal Reserve, has loaned AIG more than $225 billion to prevent the collapse of the giant insurance and financial services company. Had AIG, with tentacles entangled in economies near and far, defaulted on its massive obligations, the resulting financial shock could have brought whole countries, including our own, crashing to their knees.

As things stand now, AIG owes roughly $50 billion to the government. It has repaid tens of billions more in the past year, raising the money by selling off insurance subsidiaries. But most of AIG's debt to taxpayers was traded to the government for shares in the company. Taxpayers--you and I--now own roughly 79.8% of AIG.

Yet AIG and other Wall Street partners in crime are still planning to pay out billions in bonuses to the same people whose mismanagement and greed caused our Great Recession.

Now it's time to teach Wall Street a lesson it won't soon forget. It's time to pay off the money loaned to AIG by borrowing against a future of higher taxes on Americans .

So let's dismantle AIG.

I suggest we petition our leaders to break up AIG and sell off its remaining parts to settle its debt to the country. It could be done as soon as AIG's assets become worth the market value needed to recover our money. I confess to not knowing the corporation's worth at this moment.

Selling AIG would achieve a number of goals that would make Main Street feel a whole lot better about our government and our economy.

• Taxpayers would be relieved of the future taxes and the risk of holding the huge loans.

• The punishment would fit the crime. Just as businesses downsize and dismantle companies and jobs, devastating whole towns and regions, so let Wall Street robber barons, traders and shysters feel the sting of joblessness for once.

• The breakup and sale of AIG would send a message to Wall Street that there is a price to pay for malfeasance and destruction of our economy. And it sends a message to Main Street that there is hope for economic justice.

ª Downsizing--firing--the AIG workforce would send thousands into the unemployment lines, enlarging the pool of financial industry hacks and applying downward pressure on wages--maybe even on bonuses. Sanity and proportionality might return to Wall Street pay scales. Interest rates might drop a few tenths of a point. Confidence in our economy might return. Jobs might blossom. The sun could shine again.

Financial regulation isn't enough. Americans are out for Wall Street blood. Dismantling AIG might be a good way to spill it on the altar of justice.