'Nobody goes to jail.' This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth - and nobody went to jail.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the inaction and lack of accountability in the financial sector during the crisis.
Matt Taibbi's statement reflects the pervasive sentiment of injustice during the financial crisis, where despite widespread corruption and malfeasance, no significant consequences were faced by the major perpetrators. This situation raises questions about the nature of accountability in elite circles and illustrates a disconnection between the rules applied to ordinary citizens and those who operate at the highest levels of finance.
In practice
In a discussion about how financial institutions navigated the crisis without penalties, this quote exemplifies the frustration felt by citizens.
You win the modern financial-regulation game by filing the most motions, attending the most hearings, giving the most money to the most politicians and, above all, by keeping at it, day after day, year after fiscal year, until stealing is legal again.
Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class.
It's not a stretch to say the whole financial industry revolves around the compass point of the absolutely safe AAA rating. But the financial crisis happened because AAA ratings stopped being something that had to be earned and turned into something that could be paid for.
By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future.
I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassinated. He lived for several days after he was shot, and towards the end, his wife started crying and screaming, "I want to go too! I want to go too!" And with his last measure of strength, McKinley turned to her and spoke his last words: "We are all going.
As it turned out, though, it was a lot easier to say that someone deserved to die for what they did than it was to take the responsibility to make that happen.
We need not wait for the world to become more mystical; the world is mystical. Our problem is not that the world lacks magic; our problem is that we don't believe in its magic. We do not show up fully for life, and then wonder why life is not showing up more fully for us.
Listen to Jesus and follow him. That's the message of the Transfiguration.
If you look too closely at the form, you miss the Essence.
This is what a city is, bits and pieces that supplement each other and support each other.
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