The San Andreas fault in America's financial markets is shaking up the top dogs but leaving them with their personal fortunes -- their juicy bones --  in place.  It's the people who invested in them who are taking the hit.

"The new system was supposed to do a better job of spreading and reducing risk. But in the aftermath of the housing bust and the resulting mortgage crisis, it seems apparent that risk wasn’t so much reduced as hidden: all too many investors had no idea how exposed they were."  ... Paul Krugman

Whether you're an investor or just a plain old taxpayer (the "investor" of last resort), this is costing you.  Do you see any prospect of the system changing?  No, because the people at the top are taking their goodies home with them.  " It’s starting to look as if the rule is heads you win, tails the taxpayers lose," Krugman writes.

Can you imagine a world in which the confidence men at the top were to lose their millions first, lessening the hit on the rest of us?  Has this scare really caused a "sea change" in how Wall Street will do business in the future?