On the news that the large wall street banks are set to make record payouts again this year, nearly 18 months after the financial meltdown, most people might have a knee jerk reaction of disgust. Alas, no. We need these captains of industry to keep our engines of capitalism running right!?! Right?
Yeah, right into the ground…
With all this talk of change, new regulation and transparency, the success of these banks has not come as a result of any of these factors so the questions continue to be asked. Why did we even bail out the banks if they recovered so quickly, yet main street is still struggling to right their own ships?
Frank Rich has an excellent piece on the “Weapons of Financial Destruction” which are still in place today, and the same result could very well happen again in the near future.
The economy is not all doom and gloom as John Stewart points out:
JS is right, there aren’t really many songs about banks, but Henry Rollins writes a pretty good one from the view point of the Banker themselves:
Henry Rollins – Liar
[audio:http://inallcaps.com/GOODS/2010/JAN/06%20Liar.mp3]