Great Time for Bankers

This is a comment I just sent in response to the article, A Great Time to be a Banker, by NY Times columnist, Floyd Norris. Can't quite figure out if the title is meant ironically or he's actually being sincere. Maybe a little of both. I decided my comment is too good to bury there among all the other comments, so I've decided to bring it over here as well:

These bankers are like drug addicts or chronic gamblers. Surely they are intelligent enough to realize their day is done, that the "profits" they are now realizing are as much an illusion as they were before the last meltdown. They must also realize that, unless they are willing to totally insulate themselves, their wives and their children, from the rest of the world, they'll soon be enduring hateful stares, hurtful remarks, threats, veiled and otherwise, or worse. Their millions won't be worth it, but, like the addicts they are, they won't care.

Sadly, for us and also for them, they have become hooked on "the action" and can't help themselves. And since they have become too powerful and connected to be stopped, their path to total self-destruction, both moral and financial, is now insured. Truly, this is a morality tale writ large, for all the world to witness, and it's fascinating to see it being played out in the media and the Internet in such exquisite detail.

It should be clear to anyone following the events of the last two years that they are literally living in a bubble, the bubble created by the highly questionable, but possibly "necessary" decisions of both the Bush and the Obama administrations, to keep them in business at all costs. And since the only business they know is gaming the financial system, and since that system has been force-fed to the point that it can still be gamed no matter what, they are going to continue to play and play and play no matter what, with all the "skill" at their disposal, until the bubble finally bursts, totally and completely, beyond the power of any individual or any government to patch. And when that time comes, then we -- and they -- will finally and for all time be free of the drug called: money.