“A cunning tax on everyone else”

government_bailout1-260x223If you don’t read anything else this Labor Day weekend, check out this Nassim Taleb/Mark Spitznagel op-ed on the impact of dubious government bailout of Wall Street and big banks over the past several years:

For the American economy – and for many other developed economies – the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. In the United States, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion, .  .  . That $5 trillion dollars is not money invested in building roads, schools and other long-term projects, but is directly transferred from the American economy to the personal accounts of bank executives and employees.

Such transfers represent as cunning a tax on everyone else as one can imagine. It feels quite iniquitous that bankers, having helped cause today’s financial and economic troubles, are the only class that is not suffering from them – and in many cases are actually benefiting.

As I’ve been saying for years, it’s not rocket science.

One thought on ““A cunning tax on everyone else”

  1. Just another example of the ubiquitous corporate welfare in our race to a third world economy.
    Nothing is likely to stop it. Those who call for
    more banking regulations, and even things like a one penny fee on investment transactions are ridiculed
    by the “don’t tax the rich — that stifles job creation”, and the lapdog corporate media won’t even
    mention the subject.
    Difficult to see how our “empire” can last when its run by such anti-democratic fools as those on
    Wall street who seem bent on scamming and fleecing
    the national treasury at every turn.

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