The subprime crisis in the US started with the collapse of Lehman Brothers causing hundreds of people to lose their jobs and starting a global crisis but CEO Richard Fuld received $ 22 million in salary and bonuses. Seems that the bank was faking its accounts to hide the extent of its exposure. In the UK the Royal Bank of Scotland would have failed if the government had not taken over 70% of the bank effectively nationalising it but CEO Fred Goodwin walked off with a pension of 342000 pounds at the age of just 50 years and a tax free lump sum of 2.7 million pounds. The previous Greek government was also fudging its figures to hide the extent of its debts. The Irish government chose to nationalise its banks to prevent their collapse and effectively turned private debt into a sovereign one. These governments have enacted severe austerity budgets cutting public sector jobs and pay, freezing pensions and raising taxes. In the UK students took out a huge procession of November 10 to protest the trebling of college tuition fees. None of the bank officials or politicians have been asked to pay for the losses they caused. The common refrain is that banks need to attract the best brains. Well, if the brains were that best they should not have caused the meltdown. Common sense says that the basis of capitalism should be meritocracy which means success is rewarded and failure punished. But in the case of bankers their criminal stupidity is rewarded while the taxpayer picks up the bill and ordinary people suffer. Communism died because it perverted to oligarchy. Capitalism has become shameless greed. Eat cake by all means but not at the cost of people's bread.