Occupy Wall Street

In the last week, I've had three or four people ask me "what's up with those goddamn kids in New York?" It's not that hard to figure out.

Let's see who the players are. On the one hand, we have people who brought the world economy to the brink of failure while adding nothing of value to it, needed to be saved from themselves by the taxpayers, and changed nothing. Nothing. The bonuses after the Great Recession and the bailout were as big as before, and nobody lost his job.

On the other hand, we have everybody else.

In 2008, after being rescued to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars by the taxpayers, Wall Street firms paid out $18 billion in bonuses. (On which they paid very little taxes, but that's a post for another day.) At the same time, everyone else suffered. Prices for energy and food spiked. Seniors living on savings lost money as interest rates cratered.

I won't even go into the rise of the Tea Party and their calls for lower government spending, even in the face of inadequate aggregate demand. It's hard enough to even try to explain inadequate aggregate demand.

So what's it all about? It's pretty easy: why hasn't anyone paid the price for this? I mean, among those who caused it -- everyone else, you and me included, paid the price. For the Wall Street folks, huge bonuses and job security. The only thing missing is negative consequences.

The "culture of accountability" in the United States? It exists, don't get me wrong. Just not on Wall Street.