Taxing grandma to pay Goldman Sachs

This all comes at a cost to someone - America's elderly. Many retirees depend on interest from certificates of deposit (CDs). Those rates are down dramatically, and as CDs expire retirees are compelled to reinvest their savings at lower rates and live on less. They can take comfort that their sacrifices are helping to pay off Wall Street's losses from the lavish bonuses paid bankers - for example, the US$70.3 million Goldman doled to chief executive Lloyd Blankfein in 2007.

Now the banks, led by Goldman, want to pay back funds they received under the Troubled Assets Relief Program and free themselves of federal restrictions on compensation. After all, as private concerns, they argue that what they pay will depend on what profits they can generate. Yet, the Fed's lines of credit to banks, insurance companies and the like exceed $800 billion, and its monetary policy transfers income from retirees to the likes of Blankfein.

Isn't this a great country?