make 'em pay

With the latest financial crisis, Wall Street is very much in its normal mode of seeking to socialize losses - while profits, of course, must remain private.

Wall Street banker William Cohen doesn't think this is wise. "Accountability has been absent from Wall Street for too long. Unless we restore it to the equation -- amid all the other proposals for fixing the capital markets now being bandied at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue -- the chances are high that the cycle of boom and bust will keep churning."

I think he's right. They should pay.