This little clip has been going around the Internet. It's a London trader explaining how he loves recessions because they are money making opportunities.
When I say that people in finance are sociopaths, I want you to know I'm not being hyperbolic. I really think they have created a culture whereby any sense of human decency, of human connection, has been lost.
No, not lost. Shot, dismembered, disemboweled, burned and the ashes scattered.
This is why we need a new populism that harnesses outrage at this view of the world - making money off the misery of millions - and put it to work making a fairer, juster world. This is why Elizabeth Warren has become the darling of anyone to the left of Larry Summers. She gets it and even better she can explain why.
But unfortunately, we have a cultural problem. Regulatory reform can end some bad practices, but ultimately, they will find ways around the reforms. They always do.
One reason I want to see higher taxes on the rich - especially those who earn their money through "finance" - is that they will do less damage with that money than will the government.
In 1980, Reagan said, "Government is not the solution to your problems, government IS the problem."
Replace "Government" with "Markets", and I think you have a rallying cry for 2012. Obama is temperamentally unable to be that messenger, but that message has to be made.
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