The 2008 crash, of course, birthed a whole generation of new bailout schemes. Banks placed billions in bets with AIG and should have lost their shirts when the firm went under — AIG went under, after all, in large part because of all the huge mortgage bets the banks laid with the firm — but instead got the state to pony up $180 billion or so to rescue the banks from their own bad decisions.

Matt Taibbi has a great Rolling Stone blog post detailing how the Occupy protests aren’t rooted in envy but are rather an understandable reaction to the favoritism lavished upon giant financial firms.