Most of the time, you can ignore that foot on your neck. You can pretend that electoral politics work and that we are a nation of law, not of rich people. You can revel when your tribe puts someone in office, and pretend that the person you voted for is working in your interests.

Not today. Today it is confirmed: there will be no prosecutions, there will be no accountability for the rich financiers and their clients who caused the Great Crash of 2008, profited mightily, fought off regulation, and escaped with their personal fortunes and their reputations intact, all as part of the great muddle-through plan of the Obama administration.

The New York Times has a potentially explosive story today indicating Goldman Sach’s top executives personally oversaw the mortgage-securities trading unit that created the Abacaus deals and had decided to go short the market. But what did it tell shareholders?

Remember the outrage following the decision to cover 100 percent of the credit default swaps claims against AIG? Well, now it appears that payout may have been partly for the same types of Goldman Sachs securities over which Goldman is now being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission.