The Great Bank Robbery - Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Mark Spitznagel - Project Syndicate
www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-great-bank-robbery
From the page
Saved with the link. Notes from 2007 to 2016 are mostly the page's own words, so this is probably an excerpt.
For the American economy and for many other developed economies the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. For banks that have filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion, an amount vastly larger than what both President Barack Obamas administration and his Republican opponents seem willing to cut from further government deficits.