Anger over the recession, Ponzi schemes and stunning evidence of greed among Wall Street tycoons is making for a populist brew that could turn out be highly combustible.

Along with executives of AIG, Bermuda could end up being among its victims, if it does not make a better case for its role in the world financial system than it has thus far.

This week, the anger is being directed at executives of AIG who collected millions of dollars in bonuses from a company that is only alive because of the generosity of the US taxpayer.

It is not clear whether AIG is either getting good public relations advice and ignoring it or is simply getting terrible advice. What is obvious is that its executives have tin ears when it comes to dealing with the public.

In fact the anger, while understandable, is misplaced. Many units of AIG remain profitable and successful, and if the company is to survive, it needs to keep the executives who have made it so. And to do that, they need to be recompensed, or they will follow their former colleagues to other insurers, some of them based in Bermuda.

This has not been explained, and perhaps can't be in the current climate, but those are the facts. And no, the executives in the financial products division that brought a once great company to its knees do not deserve bonuses.

Similarly, Bermuda came under the spotlight on the weekend in Britain when it was reported in two of the country's most respected newspapers that Lord Myner, the Minister for the City of London, had helped to set up Aspen Holdings Ltd. in Bermuda and had served as its chairman.

Aspen, the newspapers claimed, had avoided paying $150 million in taxes in the United Kingdom since it was formed in 2002.

To some extent, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is resisting calls to sack Lord Myner, is being hung by his own petard because he has joined in the anti-tax haven crusade.

Again, the facts don't support the case being made against the Minister. One of Aspen's founding shareholders was Lloyd's underwriter Wellington, but US private equity firm Blackstone and Swiss-American investment back Credit Suisse First Boston also founded it. It is now publicly owned and traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

But such is the bloodlust to find someone to blame for the current economic crisis that Lord Myner may be its victim, along with Bermuda.

In fact, offshore financial centres, whatever their other sins, have had very little to do with the economic downturn, which was largely caused by the irresponsibility of onshore borrowers and lenders, compounded by the greed of Wall Street bankers who bundled the loans and sold them, and the complicity of ratings agencies who said they were safer than they ever were.

In the meantime, politicians failed to regulate the sector and have also refused to acknowledge that the growth of offshore financial sectors is due at least in part to the failure of "onshore" governments to rationalise their labyrinthine tax codes.

But in Aspen's case, little of this applies. It was established in Bermuda as a Bermuda company. If it can come under attack, then so can a multitude of other companies.

When people are frightened, they look for simple answers to their problems. Bermuda's case is a more nuanced than the simplistic statements being thrown around Westminster, the Capitol, Fleet Street and the blogosphere. But it is a case that needs to be made.