No, not paying taxes, swallowing up our taxes to mitigate the losses they suffered while making bad investments. Mortgages were supposed to make them filthy rich and for the last eight years, super rich financiers and stock market players balked at paying their fair share of taxes. Boy, did they live the high life! They also rebelled against government intervention. Government had become a bad word. It was all about the markets and deregulation.
It's ironic that when homeowners were the only ones hurting, these same super rich financiers were happy to foreclose. They argued that folks who could not afford their homes they should lose them. The market would work, and folks who could afford them would buy them. Now the banks are faced with a tsunami of foreclosures that the market cannot 'correct.' Now they are drowning along with the rest of us. Now they want a bailout.
For the last eight years, the middle and lower classes have been treated as beast of burden, serfs. They were expected to shoulder the bulk of the tax burden in exchange for the jobs which were supposed to trickle down from on high. And we were expected to be grateful.
Instead, the super rich sought to maximize profit, so the jobs were exported to countries where labor was cheap. We were also expected to foot most of the bills for a costly, never ending war.
As I write, these financiers are still walking away from failed banks with millions in compensation, while sticking us with the losses. The American taxpayer has become a giant sponge to absorb their successes and failures. Either way, they win.
The reality is that bankers as well as consumers must be regulated. Personally, I think many of these banks must be allowed to fail. That way nobody gets bailouts and the playing field will be level. Taxpayers need to stand up and demand that our tax dollars benefit us as well as the top one percent. It's our money and they have no right to help themselves without being held accountable.