We mentioned in our last post that we don't harbor an unfounded, strange desire for revenge on Wall Street, but we do want to see that justice is served as much as possible. This is because, as Nassim Taleb points out in the video above, "the only way this [the bank bailouts] will not be repeated is if you have punishment."

Taleb mentions that Robert Rubin received $115 million from Citibank, even though Rubin led Citi to make decisions that ultimately hurt his own company (and even though he ignored emails explicitly warning him that his decisions would hurt the company, as shown in "The Untouchables"). 

It gets worse. Citi received the most bailout money of any megabank—$476.2 billion in cash and guarantees, to be exact—and Rubin got to keep his extravagant pay. While we don't know whether Rubin deserves prison time, we know that Citi's enormous bailout and Rubin's extravagant pay set the precedent that traders can make horrible decisions and still keep their previous bonuses. In other words, carry on.

This is a bad precedent, but what can the average citizen do about it?

One idea: Switch from megabanks like Citi to a local lender. Show the world that you won't support injustice on Wall Street and that you don't want to see repeated megabank bailouts.