DOJ Proclaims Big Banks Have License to Steal

Most of us just laugh when we hear young people with limited work experience and less training decry the “1%”, meaning those who have become successful and achieved significant financial stature.

Coming from college students majoring in areas such as ethnic women’s poetry analysis and urban planning and development for antarctic populations, many of whom have a decided socialist bent, such laments sound more like whiny, envious, uninformed complaining rather than a realistic analysis of whether the wealthy truly enjoy an unfair advantage in the game of life.

Not that such college majors are not worthwhile, but they are unlikely to find significant employment opportunities or generate the kind of wealth that these students currently disdain.

Relevant education and hard work seem to offer a better path towards success, but there are also events that suggest that the mega-wealthy actually do play under a different set of rules than the rest of us. In particular it is hard to imagine that a bond trader could possibly be worth a $300 million bonus for one year’s worth of work, or a Hollywood studio executive could provide such value to the studio that his annual take could exceed $500 million dollars in one year.  But perhaps it is reasonable, and it’s not my money.

Then we come to the banking industry.  We have heard the phrase “too big to fail” in the past, and it seems that not many of us will ever attain such a lofty and protected status.  But it turns out that in banking, “too big to fail,” or “too big to allow to fail” goes beyond just providing financial backing and a soft landing should business go south, it also extends to making sure that the participants who fail, or more appropriately who cheat, do not suffer legal consequences and judgements for their misdeeds. Now that really does seem just a little unfair!

Read about the trillion dollar ripoff, page 2

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