Bash a banker

It's always interesting when you are out of the country for a week and stories develop a momentum without you being fully aware of them. Clearly there's something of a 'bash a banker' mood in the UK (and in the US). This has been to some extent whipped up by politicians who see them as convenient and popular targets that can distract attention from their own mistakes. However, now they are starting to think that this might have developed to such a stage that it could impede financial recovery.

What used to be called a day of action is in preparation in connection with the G20 summit and there is quite an interesting story here:
Protest

It would be very difficult to defend the claiming of rewards for failure in the banking sector, although some of the mechanisms that have been proposed to deal with this in both the US and the UK are unconstitutional/illegal and represent an unwelcome return of punitive taxation. An uncomfortable fact about capitalism is that 'greed' is what actually drives it to a large extent.