Rewarding Wall Street addiction does not fit the equation… This only perpetuates more trouble down the future.

H/T Business Insider–

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, an amount vastly larger than what both President Barack Obama’s administration and his Republican opponents seem willing to cut from further government deficits.

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

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Read more: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/taleb1/English#ixzz1XCYMv8y8