Don't kid yourself. It really is "us against them"

Big business?  Capitalism?  Inherently good?  If there was any evidence for that, it went down the Reagan-through-Bush2 drain and the last traces are disappearing thanks to the banks and insurance companies.  Don't let them write us off as "populists."  Better we should call them the dirty word they truly deserve:  capitalists. Reframing unleashed capitalism as a sound economic system hasn't changed what it actually is.

Insurance companies:

Insurance brokers and benefits consultants say their small business clients are seeing premiums go up an average of about 15 percent for the coming year — double the rate of last year’s increases. ... The higher premiums at least partly reflect the inexorable rise of medical costs, which is forcing Medicare to raise premiums, too.  Higher medical costs aside, some experts say they think the insurance industry, under pressure from Wall Street, is raising premiums to get ahead of any legislative changes that might reduce their profits.

Banks:

... Goldman is no longer a private partnership. It is a large, publicly traded company. “But they are still paying themselves like partners — without the risk and personal exposure and accountability that they had when they were a partnership,” said Jesse Brill, a well-known critic of executive compensation practices. What other business, after all, pays 50 percent of revenue to its employees in the form of bonuses? What other business knows that it will never have to face bankruptcy, no matter what?

Still, the premise of the firm — then and now — is that those who contribute to its success should reap the rewards. So let’s add it up: the $12.9 billion in A.I.G. help, the $10 billion in TARP, the F.D.I.C. guarantee program, the easy money trading distressed securities into the TALF program. I can’t say for sure how much of the $16 billion the firm has set aside for bonuses can be attributed to government assistance of one form or another. But it’s got to be a fairly substantial amount — at least $2 billion or $3 billion.

Which leads to one last question for [Goldman CEO Lloyd] Blankfein.

Where’s our bonus?

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Oh, I do apologise.  Frightfully sorry. I'd quite forgotten that our sort don't deserve bonuses.  How did I miss this wonderful snippet from the Guardian (h/t All Spin Zone):

In remarks that will fuel the row around excessive pay, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff. Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all".