Private Gain, Social Pain: The Blatant Greed And Arrogance Of Wall Street

If you think about it, Wall Street’s self-serving argument that it is too important to fail — the argument with which it extorted a multi-billion dollar bailout package out of the US government and US tax payers — reveals an unbelievable degree of arrogance, self-importance, and condescension. Following the logic of Wall Street’s self-serving argument, striking subway operators who are demanding 100% wage hikes should be granted every penny of their exorbitant wage demands. After all, public transportation is indispensable for the smooth functioning of large cities such as New York, London, or Tokyo. Those cities are thrown into utter chaos whenever public transportation workers go on strike, costing millions of dollars in economic damage. By the same token, policemen, firemen, teachers, doctors, and a whole host of other occupations are also indispensable, and their every demand should be humored by the government and the general public…